In Search of Trust
by LillyMayFlower
Summary: Sam Nicholls returns to Holby, to the malaise of her ex-husband, Dylan. But her return also causes problems for Lily, whose insecurity in her relationship is only compounded by seeing Iain fall so easily into his friendship with his ex-lover.
1. Chapter 1

**In Search of Trust**

 ** **I**** **'** ** **m back, writing fic again! This is a new one on me though, I've not written like this before. Let me know what you think, and tell me if I'm doing it wrong!****

 ** **In terms of the parts set in the 'present' ED, I've taken a few liberties with the timelines of certain characters for the purpose of my story - forgive me :)****

* * *

Catterick Garrison, June 2009

It was 3.14am. Dylan knew this because he had looked at the digital display of his watch every twenty minutes or so since getting into bed shortly after eleven. He had realised at about one o'clock that he probably wouldn't sleep tonight. If he thought reasonably about this, then it was a logical response to the fact that this was his last night with his wife for nine whole months.

Sam, who was sleeping soundly on the side of the bed furthest from the door despite her bedside light still being on, would be leaving for Brize Norton at six thirty, to fly to Afghanistan for the first time.

Dylan preferred to keep his blind terror of this fact to himself. It seemed acceptable for army wives to worry about the fate of their significant others (although they kept a lid on it very well, at least in the company of others) but as one of the very few army husbands, Dylan did not know the precedent for his reaction to Sam's deployment. He knew even less where he fitted with the dynamic of the wives and girlfriends who would remain in the UK with each deployment. They all seemed to have their friends, and in any case, he was not one for inane chatter or even the small talk required to get to know strangers. Sam found it amusing; he knew she was not worried in the slightest about his solitude. She knew, or thought she knew, that he would relish it as soon as she was gone. Nothing but General Practice, books, long walks and the sheep who sometimes broke into the back garden. It was true that he would enjoy the peace, but at what cost did this peace come? Was it worth it, when he was sending his wife out to war? Sometimes he still looked at her and saw the talented, attractive medical student with whom he had first fallen in love. She was still the impossibly slim, impossibly beautiful Sam Nicholls she'd always been (her married name appeared everywhere except army life.) But the edges of her had sharpened as her first taste of a war zone had drawn closer. She was, of course, physically stronger, but equally her emotions were not the same as they had been while Dylan had been her mentor. She could still be soft, but there were flashes of harshness too. And he supposed that it was a good thing - there was no point in sending someone to war who wasn't at least a little hardened to it.

Her residual softness paired with her new harshness was the reason why he couldn't tell her, why he'd never been able to tell her, about the mess inside his head. If she knew, she would either scoff in disgust and tell him to 'man up' or postpone her deployment by any means necessary. Dylan's inability to tell which path his wife would follow kept him silent.

He gave up on staring at the ceiling, and instead turned to face Sam, taking his opportunity for this last look and drinking in the sight of her blonde hair, splayed out over her pillow and encroaching into his side of the bed. Her soft pyjama top had slipped off one shoulder, exposing her warm skin, pale now in comparison to how it would be soon-browned by the unrelenting Afghan sun.

And there it was - a sudden, inexplicable, undeniable __need__ to do something to make sure that Sam returned to England safely. Dylan knew he was being stupid - his uncontrollable mind tended to be - but in a matter of seconds, he was gripped by a sense of doom that would only be dashed if he could tap the stack of books on Sam's bedside table without waking her. If he could just do that, then she would survive the tour and come home to him.

Dylan knew that what was going on in his mind was Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. It wasn't new.

He carefully propped himself up on one hand and reached over to Sam's side of the bed. He tapped the stack of books once; when this had no effect on the itching in his brain, he did it a few more times, until the feeling had passed and he could lie back down, relieved for now. The relief was momentary, because a few seconds later, Sam stirred and rolled towards her husband, her eyes opening sluggishly.

 _ _Shit,__ Dylan thought. But then, __you didn't do that. She would have woken anyway, wouldn't she?__ He was not entirely convinced, but at this moment at least, his desire to keep his condition hidden was stronger than his OCD.

It took Sam all of three seconds to know that Dylan hadn't slept at all yet.

"Anyone would think it was you deploying, not me," she mumbled, rubbing her eyes. Waking up a little more, she smiled. "Are you nervous?"

Dylan's face fell abruptly. Was it so obvious?

"I am," Sam admitted. "But it's only nine months, and I'll be home at Christmas for sure, plus whatever else I can get. You know I will."

"I know." Dylan relaxed a little. "This will teach me to drink coffee before bed. I'm not nervous, just caffeinated."

Sam saw straight through her husband's lie but didn't let on. She turned away from him, but lay back against his body until she could feel his heart beating against her back. She felt each of his breaths, and consciously slowed her own, knowing that this always used to work to calm him down. Dylan's breaths slowed too, until they were almost synchronised. One of his arms held her close, and his other hand was loose in her hair. It was cooler now than it had been earlier; she pulled the duvet up around them and appreciated this moment, knowing that it was her last one for a long time.

It terrified Dylan that Sam was hours from flying into a war zone, but he couldn't quench the pride that he felt when he thought of her dressing in her uniform later, preparing to do a sterling job out there. And she would, because she always had.

* * *

Holby City Hospital, September 2017

The ED had become a lonely, distrusting place. The 'team' as it used to be seemed to have folded, disappeared, evaporated, especially in the wake of Calais. It had just been one disaster after another (although the extent to which this was a recent issue was hotly disputed) and right now, things felt broken.

Perhaps this was particularly pertinent for Dylan, because his loneliness led to increased perceptiveness of the seemingly easy relationships happening around him.

A small group of weary but perfectly happy nurses passed him as he entered the hospital, chatting amicably on their way out of a night shift, ready to have breakfast together. Their conversation was all irrelevant to Dylan, small talk and plain chatter, but he could not deny that he missed the way he used to be party to these conversations with Zoe. Although she was not present to exacerbate how he was feeling (being happily settled in Michigan) Dylan was suddenly painfully aware of her absence. This feeling was intermittent; he was not a stranger to it. At that moment, it was as though Zoe and Max had followed the gaggle of nurses, conversing equally aimlessly and purposefully about their weekends and future plans. A slew of inside jokes would have flown over Dylan's head had this situation not been imaginary, but the isolation of this was all too real. It was loneliness that caused Dylan to look upon his memory of Zoe with bitterness, while at the time he had merely rolled his eyes and dropped in a few sarcastic comments for approval.

"Morning, Dylan," Charlie said, pulling Dylan out of his head and back into the real world. The consultant simply nodded in return, desperate to look away from the senior nurse. It was impossible to escape from the growing madness of isolation when the very person offering a polite greeting also happened to have their wife's caring hand resting on their shoulder. Dylan knew too well that he could have had that comforting presence, that easy-going unconditional care and affection. If only Sam hadn't cheated, and if only he had been the owner of a brain other than his own.

The only person almost as alone as Dylan was Ethan. The position of Clinical Lead had not been kind to him; he was making himself more unpopular by the day, through little fault of his own. Drowning in bureaucracy did not suit him in the least. But while Dr Keogh was painfully alone, Ethan had a single friend.

* * *

Lily walked into the ambulance station, her hand encapsulated tightly by Iain's. In the quiet of the office, Lily checked her watch.

"How long have we got?" Iain asked, pulling her closer to him by her hips. He was sitting on the end of the desk, looking hopeful.

"Fifteen minutes," Lily replied, having instantaneously calculated how much time she needed to make it to the ED with time to spare before the start of her shift, in relation to Iain starting his shift and saving face if they were going to start kissing in here. "Less, even, if you've got a new paramedic due any minute."

Instead of responding straight away, Iain jumped up from the desk and started to kiss his girlfriend, an act which was reciprocated immediately. Both of their hearts sped up, rushing their emotions faster through their bloodstreams. Lily was wearing dark pink lipstick; it looked incredible, so good he wanted to kiss her until it was gone completely. The only problem with this was the inevitable transfer of pigment to his own face. Embarrassing, and blatantly obvious if left unchecked. But Iain didn't care, at that precise moment.

Having been turned fully around until she was leaning against the desk, Lily pushed herself reluctantly away. "I mean it," she said unevenly. "I don't want us to be…"

"You can't even say it, you're so prim and proper," Iain teased, kissing Lily's neck where it met her left ear.

Lily's cheeks warmed and she squeezed Iain's hand. She bit her lip. "If your new paramedic just strolls in here while we're doing… this… You've got to work with them! And I'll have to see them every day too!"

"Are you embarrassed about me?" Iain said, falsely, melodramatically offended. He knew exactly what he was doing.

Immediately unsure of how much Iain was playing around with her, Lily was quick to insist that this wasn't the case. "Don't be silly," she chastised gently. Not embarrassed, just intensely insecure. People like Iain didn't love people like her - not that they had exchanged that all-important work excessively. It was a new addition to their relationship, one which still had the power to make Lily weak at the knees if it caught her off guard. If they were the stars of a classic American high school flick, then their relationship would be about as likely as one between the quarterback and the vice-captain of the mathletes.

"If you're not embarrassed, then maybe I'm not trying hard enough," Iain retorted. He whirled Lily around before dipping her down almost to the ground, her bodyweight supported by his strong frame as easily as if she was a mere shadow. One hand between her shoulder blades, he looked down at her flushed face as she let out an excited sound of surprise. "How about now?"

"Iain!" Lily said breathlessly. "If Josh walks in and sees this!"

Iain held her suspended for a few more seconds, looking up at the door with feigned anxiety, pretending he'd heard something outside.

"Iain Dean!"

His face relaxed as he met Lily's sparkling eyes. "Relax, Lily Chao," he said calmly, smiling. "Josh already told me, he's bringing my new partner in crime at eleven thirty."

Lily sighed. As Iain pulled her back upright, she smoothed her skirt, ran a hand carefully over her hair and checked her blouse for a single square inch of fabric out of place. Then she looked at Iain's grinning face. There was a smudge of her lipstick under his bottom lip. "Not a good look for you," she remarked, wiping it away with a feather-light touch of a fingertip. "I'm off, okay? Be nice to your new paramedic."

"Nice? Me? I'm always nice," Iain replied, smiling cheekily and twitching his eyebrows.

"Of course you are. I'll see you, I expect."

"You will," Iain confirmed. "Lots of sick people to deliver to your chamber of healing," he added, putting on a posh voice and bowing ostentatiously.

"Shut up," Lily said, letting out a single syllable of laughter. It was here that she might have said _'_ _ _I love you'__ if she hadn't been so afraid to.

When she said "you're an idiot," Iain knew that what she really meant to say was that she loved him, so he replied by calling across the ambulance station, "I love you too, Dr Chao!"

* * *

From her brief glance into the Clinical Lead's office, as she passed it, Lily could see that all was not well for its occupant. She doubled back, and tapped lightly on the open door.

"Alright?" she asked in a quietly commanding voice. The moment the word escaped her lips, she knew that she'd only said it so naturally because of how much time she had been spending with Iain. She was catching some of his linguistic habits, although, in her clipped voice, it often sounded out of place and made Iain laugh.

Ethan looked up immediately, and relaxed slightly on seeing that it was Lily at his door. He couldn't bring himself to smile to her in the way that he normally would have done.

"You look stressed," Lily said, pulling on the strap of her bag and watching her friend intently. "You know, if there's anything I can do to help you out, you only have to say the word. Ask me to jump and I'll ask you how high, if it'll make it all go away."

Ethan took his glasses off and rested them on the desk. He pinched the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes shut. "There's nothing you can do, Lily. I'm fine, only adjusting. Big shoes to fill, and all that."

"Maybe you don't have to fill any shoes, Ethan," Lily said directly. "Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken, especially Mrs Beauchamp, who will be back down here and telling us all what to do before we know it."

"Quoting Oscar Wilde is commendable but not overly helpful," Ethan replied, hating how easy it was to be cold and distant from his best friend. Lily had made a valid point, which already weighed heavy on his mind. But there was no escaping the greater weight of expectation, that he (with his precisely zero experience) must run the department as well as Connie herself.

"Perhaps not," conceded Lily, "but you know where I am, if you need anything at all." She was unperturbed by his sharpness, and excused herself from the office to begin her shift. Before starting work, she stood in front of the mirror in the toilets and re-applied her lipstick.

* * *

Dylan strode out of resus at half past one, covered in someone else's vomit. Recoiling slightly from the disgusting addition to his clothing, he would have been forgiven for not noticing that Sam Nicholls stood a few feet away from him. But he looked up at the last moment, and recognised the blonde ponytail cascading down her back at once, even though the paramedic uniform threatened to throw his assumption off completely. Sam turned around, and managed to control her body's impulse to widen her eyes and take a gasp of surprise. She looked unflappable, unreactive to all of this, which irritated Dylan at once. Everything that he had ever felt towards Sam exploded inside his brain, every minute emotion combining into one, crashing around chaotically. But outwardly, he controlled the panic he might have liked to have shown through his face, and scowled instead.

"What the __hell__ are you doing here?"


	2. Chapter 2

****Thank you so much for the lovely reviews I received on the last chapter. It makes me so happy that my story is being enjoyed!****

 ** **A quick note before this chapter - I reference "blueys" a couple of times here. These are Free Forces Air Letters, letters sent between serving members of the armed forces and their loved ones and delivered via the British Forces Post Office, so-nicknamed because they're blue.****

* * *

Brize Norton, March 2010

The anticipation was nearly unbearable.

Standing around like this, Dylan felt extremely out of place. All those waiting around him, excepting the numerous children, were female, anxiously awaiting their husbands and partners from the flight which had just landed from Camp Bastion. It was not just his gender which made Dylan feel alone: the wives and girlfriends around him looked far more 'together' than he did. Perhaps it was inaccurate to judge himself against them, with their immaculate hair and make-up, flanked by small children carrying hand-drawn banners, but in comparison to all these husbands, partners and fathers, what was Sam returning to?

Dylan was a well-dressed GP, standing awkwardly in a crisp white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. This was a habit owed to his time in the A&E at King's, so deeply ingrained that it now felt all wrong to have long sleeves that reached his wrists. His life was built from habits, and Sam's return was going to up-end all those he had formed over the last nine months. While habits soothed his OCD, he knew that to have his wife back would be the greatest antidote to his broken brain. Dylan may well have been well-dressed, but Sam would probably comment that he needed a shave, and how long would it be before she detected the deep mental distress which had tailed him since her departure?

He had spent the previous night in Oxford and had slept perhaps two hours, in non-consecutive snatches. His brain had been itching with anticipation, flitting between Sam, the fact that he'd been sober for six days, and the young Irish wolfhound sleeping in the truck. While Dervla might have been young, she looked old before her time, and Sam had no idea about her. Dylan could already pre-empt Sam's reaction: amusement, a childish roll of her beautiful eyes, and probably some sarcastic comment to rival his own manner, to the tune of him finally finding someone to talk to whose responses couldn't frustrate him.

The atmosphere was electric. Everyone here had waited for months for this moment, the moment when their loved ones would be returned to them, safe at last. Dylan knew how lucky he was to be getting Sam back at all; the news had been packed lately with reports of fallen soldiers, indiscriminate of battalions or rank. Too many times he had seen the images of flights landing to offload coffins draped in the union jack, and too many times his brain had made him do ridiculous things to stop Sam, __his__ Samantha, becoming one of them. And the worst of it all was that the only thing to quiet these torments was to drink until he couldn't see straight and couldn't hear the thoughts anymore.

It had been harder lately to hide the fact that he so often woke up hungover. Alcohol had such a clingy smell, and he knew his drinking was bad because he didn't always notice it anymore. But he hadn't had a drink in six days, and had spent the last two cleaning their cottage obsessively (and he knew that it __was__ obsessively, too) so that there was not even a trace of it left behind.

Soldiers began emerging into the room, and there were squeals of delight from the wives, girlfriends and children alike. Dylan was silent, watching a small girl sprint across and leap into her father's arms. A few feet away, a teenage boy was obviously trying to withhold all emotion, but failed on being pulled into a tight embrace by his returned father.

Sam finally appeared. She was laughing and joking with her colleagues as she walked, scanning the room carefully until her eyes fell on her husband. Her heart immediately rose into her throat when their eyes met, and she was frozen to the spot. For a fleeting second, his face showed nothing at all, and she wondered if he was glad to see her at all. And then his mask of grumpiness, that had earned his nickname in the first place, dropped. His eyes warmed, and although he didn't smile, Sam wasn't surprised, and knew she wouldn't get better.

Dylan's heart was beating faster - like panic, but kinder. Sam was so tanned, she looked so exhausted, but her eyes were so alive! She stood in one spot, and then it seemed that all her energy had been recharged. Breaking rank, forgetting her status, she ran towards him, a smile shining all over her face. She dropped her bag at his feet and clung to him. He hugged her tightly in return, tucking his head down until his lips brushed her collar. One hand cupped the back of her head and the other was pressed against the small of her back, holding her close.

Leaning back from the hug, Sam tilted her head up to kiss Dylan's lips. She had had some brief leave a few months ago, but this was so much more real. Knowing that she was home safe for a long time was pure magic.

"Samantha," Dylan mumbled clumsily as she pulled away again.

"Hold on," Sam said, stepping back slightly. She pulled off her beret and pushed it into Dylan's hands, picking the grips from the tight bun in her hair and shaking the smooth blonde waves free. "Ready," she conceded, smiling as she fell back into her husband's arms. The army was everything, but Dylan was more.

* * *

Holby City Hospital, September 2017

"What the __hell__ are you doing here?" Dylan asked plaintively, staring in disbelief at his ex-wife. How was it that she could stand there as if nothing had changed, as if the last six years of total silence and the prior three years of dysfunctional marriage, hadn't even happened. She didn't seem to be reacting aversely to this at all; there was even a tiny hint of an approaching warm smile. He wished that her smile didn't have such a strong impact on him, but then again, it always had. Her smile was just… Right now, it didn't bear thinking about. She had hurt him, and he had completely ruined things for her in return. So the way her smile made him feel was not high on his list of important thoughts.

Sam shrugged. "I'm back," she said, as if this was an explanation.

"I can see that," came the curt reply.

Sighing, Sam kept going. "How are you, anyway?" She had to try, she had to make an effort. He was the only reason she came back here at all: on completing her transfer to the paramedic service she could have gone anywhere in the country, especially with her experience of medicine in the field as well as the ED, but something made her choose here. Or, some _ _one__ made her choose here.

Dylan couldn't help himself responding coldly, not caring if he was overheard. What was new gossip, in this place, anyway? In an hour his entire marital history would have reached upstairs, news travelled so quickly. "It's only been six years, Samantha, I'm surprised you're taking an interest."

At this, Sam lost her cool. It used to make her feel so special, to have one person in the world use her full name, despite how much she hated it. He used to say it with such kindness. He used to mean it. He used to use it purely because no-one else did, and it was a kind of badge of honour, to hear it from him. To have him pay her that much attention. She frowned, adjusting her stance. "God, you really haven't changed –"

"I - No, I haven't," Dylan cut in, not allowing her to finish. "My unconditional positive regard for the human race ran out a long time ago." He had hoped to turn and walk away with this response, get the last word in, but of course, Sam won this too.

"That's if you ever had any."

He was still the same man, reminding her exactly how smart he was at every available opportunity. Other people might have made that point without referencing an academic proposal from the 1960s. Why exactly had she thought that this would be a good idea?

* * *

On her lunch break, Lily slipped out of the ED and back to the ambulance station. Seeing that Iain hadn't noticed her come in, she sneaked up behind his seated form (from his position at the table he was facing away from her) and covered his eyes with her hands.

"Guess who?" she said, smiling as he squirmed beneath her fingertips.

"No need," Iain replied. "Cold hands. Can only be my Ice Princess." He stood up and turned to face his girlfriend.

Lily bristled at hearing the nickname that had initially been used to taunt her by so many. It was taking some getting used to, to hear it and take it as affection. But when Iain put his hands on either side of her face and kissed her, her discomfort was forgotten. When she took a breath through her nose, her proximity to his face meant she could smell the coffee he'd been drinking, a hint of his aftershave, and her washing powder (the last time he'd done laundry of his uniform had been at the weekend, when he had been staying in her flat.)

Sam came into the office, her eyes growing wide as she realised what she'd walked in on. "Iain, I've put the - oh."

Lily flew backwards, nearly losing her balance on her high-heeled shoes but regaining composure at the last second. She didn't know where to look. If she looked at Iain, she might laugh, because he'd pull a face. If she looked at the new paramedic, she'd die of embarrassment. And yet while she was staring around the room and back down at her feet, she must look such a fool. She opened and closed her mouth a few times, not knowing what to say, either. There was silence for a second, then she looked up at Iain agonisingly.

But Iain was unfazed. "Lily, you remember Sam, don't you?"

Sam?! The immaculate filing system of Lily's brain felt as though it was on fire, for all the good it was doing. Did she know a Sam?!

"Sam Nicholls," Iain elaborated. "She used to be a registrar here, not before your time, surely?"

While Lily was trying to reconcile the Dr Nicholls she vaguely remembered with the paramedic standing before her, Sam was trying to piece together the impeccably-dressed doctor before her with the Lily Chao she recalled. This woman was a long way from the overzealous F2 in her memory. But she held out her hand nonetheless. "It's nice to see you again, Lily." She smiled cordially, careful to make a good impression. Although, she reminded herself, this had not been high on Lily's list of priorities the first time their paths had crossed.

"Likewise," Lily replied, shaking Sam's hand. Already a seed of doubt was planting itself in her mind, the product of her deep-rooted insecurity. If she remembered rightly, Sam had been an army medic, and Iain had also been in the army, and this must have been around the same time. There was nothing… between them, was there? Lily mentally shook herself. The army was vast, there was no reason why they would have known each other before now.

Sam was carrying two cups of coffee. "Fresh brew, Corporal," she said, sliding easily into the seat which Iain had recently vacated. Lily watched Sam's eyes and felt her insides turn to ice. There was something more than just collegial familiarity there. They certainly had not met for the first time this morning.

Accepting the coffee, Iain grinned. "Ah alright Sam, we're not in Helmand anymore!" He pushed her a little, intending to get her off his chair, but she didn't budge.

"Not as strong as you used to be, are you?"

Iain's eyes rolled like marbles and Lily' stomach twisted. He took the next seat along. "You staying, Lily?"

"No, I - I need to go, I've just - I need to go."

She took half a step away, but not sensing her uneasiness, Iain brushed his hand against hers, failing in his attempt to hold her back for a second. "I'll catch you later, yeah?"

Lily pressed her lips together, pausing on the spot. She nodded tightly.

When she was walking out, she could hear them talking. They already had, or perhaps still had, a slew of inside jokes and banter that made Lily feel sick. Was this jealousy, or was she just becoming every trope of over-protective girlfriends? What did it matter that Iain knew Sam, and they were friends?

But in her heart of hearts, she knew that it mattered an awful lot.

It had taken her months to be 'in' with Iain, and even now she didn't manage to have the manner with him that Sam had with no effort whatsoever.

* * *

Watching from a distance, Lily saw Iain and Sam bringing a patient into resus. She was far enough away that she would not be called upon to assist, which she was very glad about. Her boyfriend and his new 'colleague' worked seamlessly together, and their easy manner and instant friendship seemed to continue rather than cool.

"If I was Lily, I'd be keeping an eye on her."

Lily was frozen to the spot, paralysed by the poisonous words winding into her ears and fertilising her earlier doubts about Iain and Sam. Grounding herself, she gripped the file in front of her and listened intently.

"Louise," Robyn whispered. "Lily's right there, she doesn't need to hear that! Especially not from you, you're not exactly her favourite person."

"I don't care how much she hates me; she'll hate Sam an awful lot more if she ruins her life like she ruined Dylan's! Do you not think she deserves to know about Iain?"

Rubbing the space between her eyebrows, Lily couldn't take all this in. It was true the Louise was not high (or indeed even a feature) on her extremely limited list of friends. Lily couldn't stand the way Louise knew exactly what was happening all over the ED, and needed to spread every bit of gossip. But, all that said, Louise's 'gossip' was rarely far from the truth. What did she mean; how did Sam have anything to do with Iain? The way Sam had dropped Iain's rank into conversation earlier had seemed unusually playful and colloquial, but also mildly condescending. Almost as though the new paramedic was pulling rank, showing off that she was one-up on Iain, or even more than that. Lily didn't know much about the army, but she was fairly sure that relationships crossing ranks were exactly encouraged or celebrated.

Later, she managed to catch Robyn on her own (while she wanted Louise's gossip, she wouldn't give her the satisfaction of begging for information.) It wasn't until she had the young nurse's attention that Lily wondered how she would broach this subject.

"I - um, I heard you talking, earlier, with Louise," she began.

Robyn clasped her hands in front of her, eyes a little wider than usual. "Oh, that. That was nothing, just –"

"It wasn't nothing," Lily insisted. "But I've got nothing to worry about, with Sam. She married Tom Kent, she's spoken for." Robyn knew this, but Lily was asserting some confidence, using what knowledge she had to dig for further information.

"Well, that's not what I've heard. She's single, and she's had… history, with Iain."

"No, she has a history with Tom Kent," Lily attested.

Robyn sighed. "No, this was before. She was married to Dylan, but she cheated on him with Iain, in Afghanistan. Pretty sure that's why they separated."

The blood drained out of Lily's face, and she excused herself at once, escaping to the mercifully-empty staffroom, almost crying in her frustration and worry.

* * *

Helmand Province, Afghanistan, July 2011

When Sam woke up beside Corporal Iain Dean, the gravity of what she had done finally hit her.

It was already hot and stuffy in this tiny little room; she got out the bed carefully, so as not to wake Iain, and crept out into the hallway in her shorts and vest top. It was early enough that no-one else was around, thank goodness, so she made it to the wall-mounted phone without being seen. She had nearly dialled the totality of Dylan's mobile number when she paused to check the time. Three minutes past seven, so that made it… three thirty-three, in the UK. She returned the phone to its cradle and leaned against the wall, breathing heavily.

What would she even tell him? _'_ _ _Hi Dylan, this couldn't wait until I send my next bluey, I've just slept with a squaddie and I've never regretted anything more in my life'__ probably wouldn't be worth the credit to call him. Not to mention that it would make him hate her forever. But would he hate her more for keeping this a secret? He was the most honest, direct person she had ever known. He despised secrets of any kind, and wasn't entirely discrete, sometimes missing the social cues that might point to concealment being the kindest option.

Feeling so desolately alone last night, Iain had made her feel so good, but now she felt sick. She needed to hear her husband's voice, to feel at home, to feel safe. Although, in recent weeks, she had had suspicions of her own, about how Dylan was coping (or more pertinently, what he was using as a coping mechanism) during her deployment. His blueys were not as pristine as they had once been. They were not as coherent, and his handwriting was intermittently as though it wasn't his own. A couple of times, there had been marks on them, from spilt liquid. She feared it was alcohol, but there was no way to tell. By the time they reached her in Afghanistan, any odour was gone.

Sam slid down the wall and sat with her knees against her chest. She felt alone now, wished she was at home where nothing was going wrong. But she strongly suspected that things __were__ going wrong at home. She wanted to fix it all, but she was powerless. She was unused to having no power in a situation - instead, this time, it was her actions, her decision to sleep with Iain, that held all of the power here. She knew that she still loved Dylan, but there were things in her way now. Could she still love him, if she knew that he was drinking to deal with her being away? And would he still love her, if he knew what she had done?

"Hey, what's up with you?" Iain's voice cut through Sam's thoughts.

"Nothing," she said, taking his hand and standing up when he offered a hand down to help her up. "Just… homesick."

Iain laughed a little. "I've never known you be homesick, in all the time I've known you."

Frowning, Sam let go of his hand. "You haven't known me very long."

* * *

In actuality, homesickness was not an unusual occurrence to her, although she didn't usually cope with it by jumping into bed with the first person to make her feel special. When the hour at home wasn't quite so unsociable, Sam managed to slip away from proceedings and call her husband. She still didn't know what she was going to say.

He answered quickly, which was a relief because it didn't give her time to change her mind. "Sam?"

She tried to look past the slur in his words. It was still fairly early, maybe he had just woken up. "Dylan. I had to call - I had to tell you something, but I just… I needed my safe harbour. I want to be home."

"You'll be - home s-soon. Not long until demob-happy sets in."

Sam slammed the phone down. He was drunk, at quarter to eleven in the morning.

In that moment, she hardened. Dylan had once said that she had an incredible unconditional positive regard for other people, some reference to a psychological study in the sixties, or something. It had made her glow, hearing him talk so positively about her. But now there was no glow, just a desire to set the world on fire to watch it burn until there was nothing left. She had felt guilty for letting him down. She had thought it would break him, to know what she had done. But judging by that phone call, he didn't even know what day it was. And she doubted that this was the first time.


	3. Chapter 3

****Thank you for the reviews, I really appreciate every single one of them :)****

* * *

King's College Hospital, London, July 2007

Behind the locked door of a toilet cubicle, Dylan downed the very last of a miniature bottle of whiskey and pushed the evidence behind a disgusting heap of paper towels at the back of the cubicle. At last, the screeching impulses of OCD went silent. He told himself that this dose of self-medication was acceptable, that he didn't have a problem with alcohol because he didn't consume the entirety of this bottle today. Other people dealt with their stress by drinking at the end of the day. It was nearly the end of the day. If anything, this was merely a headstart.

Even so, staring into the empty eyes of his reflection in the toilets' mirror after he'd washed his hands twice, he brushed his teeth for exactly five minutes and swilled spearmint mouthwash around his mouth again and again until his eyes streamed.

Stress was defined as 'a state of mental strain resulting from adverse or demanding circumstances.' He knew this verbatim because by now he had accepted that his brain was happiest (relatively speaking) when it knew things exactly. Which was fine, until he found himself needing to know how many days it was until the gaggle of F1s he was in charge of would be moving on; exactly how many shift hours this translated to and how many hours he had left to complete their reams of required paperwork; the number of procedures each required for their portfolios and precisely what these procedures were; and how he could possibly fit all of this around Sam.

Sam was a little pocket of gold dust in this place, although Dylan had never told her as much. He wasn't sure exactly when she'd started taking up more space in his field of vision than just another student (and he had been a mentor to many over the last four years.) She'd stood out at once though, in the way she'd barrel into a situation with the youthfully naive assumption that she could save the world single-handedly. Although, as she'd gradually proven herself to be a cut above the others, he didn't doubt that perhaps one day she would do just that. Aside from her frankly staggering appearance, no matter what had come before, it had maybe been her no-nonsense acceptance of his general abrasiveness that had begun to change their relationship from one strictly between mentor and student. She had no qualms about giving as good as she got, sassing him right back without even batting an eyelid. And she would contest him too, if she thought he wasn't being fair. Her skills, her appearance and her fierce intellect, they were all incredibly attractive.

* * *

It was a ·habit now, to look through Dylan's office door every time she passed it, but Sam wasn't expecting to see him in there this time. Confused, she looked at her watch. Dylan should have gone home over an hour ago - but she was grateful for his presence. It had been a very trying shift. The pressure on her to perform exceptionally was immense; on the path she had chosen, leading her ever closer to her career in army medicine, there was no room whatsoever for even a shred of emotional fragility. If she let her guard down in front of the others, her reputation of steadfastness would be ruined. There was only one person she could trust to support her __and__ keep it quiet too.

She knocked gently on the door, peering through the glass pane to where her mentor (although he was undeniably more than that, ever since that fateful shift on New Year's Eve) was looking up from his desk and its unrelenting pile of paperwork. He raised one eyebrow minutely, questioning her intentions without the need for words. Refusing to buckle under a gaze that could probably reduce some of her colleagues to tears, she opened the door anyway.

"I was passing," she began, "and you looked as though you needed a hand."

"Dr Nicholls, wonderful as that offer is, I think it would be highly inappropriate for you to have any input on the documentation of your peers." He picked up his fountain pen and returned his attention to the form in front of him, scanning it briefly before putting a date and signature at the bottom.

" _ _Dr Nicholls?__ " Sam said, teasing. "I think it's highly inappropriate for you to forget my name, after the last seven months." She raised her eyebrows, eyes sparkling with repressed laughter. It didn't matter what kind of a day it had been, not when she could come in here and feel so normal again. In the middle of her chaos, there was always him.

Dylan tutted and replaced the lid on his fountain pen. "Do you think so?" he asked, not seriously. "Fine, then, __Samanth__ _ _a__ -"

"Oh, alright!" Sam said. She stood expectantly beside his desk chair. "You look like you've had enough, and your shift ended more than an hour ago. Just go home, deal with it tomorrow." Watching him carefully, she didn't know what to think about what she saw. He had put his fountain pen back in the mug he used for a pen pot but had retrieved a pen of the sort with a clicking end. He clicked and unclicked it repeatedly, only stopping when he realised that Sam was aware of what he was doing. Sam rubbed her eyes, tired out by the day.

Dylan selfishly took these few seconds to tap on the desk with his left index fingertip, finishing what he hadn't with the pen. If he didn't, then his brain would have the leverage to convince him that __any__ death in the emergency department was his doing.

"God, you need a drink don't you!" Sam said, laughing as she saw him tapping the last few times.

Eyes wide in shock, Dylan abruptly sat up, affronted. It was a good thing he gave himself a second to think about what she'd said, in which time, she'd elaborated, and proved to him that she was blissfully ignorant of his dysfunctional relationship with alcohol.

"You look like you've seen a ghost, what's up? Do I take it you won't be joining us in the pub later?"

"Us?" What he was doing with Sam toed a very thin line of what was acceptable conduct, and it wasn't something either of them planned to make public while she was still on placement here. He hated to think how difficult it would be to keep himself away from her if he had been peer-pressured into drinking.

Sam rolled her eyes. "I've been spending too much time with Jane, I'm catching Geordie!" As though she had read his mind, she carried on. "I'm not in a rush to drag you out in public just yet, don't worry."

Dylan put his hand on top of hers, which rested on the edge of his desk. "I can't wait for this placement to be over, and to stop worrying about when to call you Sam and when to call you Dr Nicholls." As his mind had spiralled lately, it had been harder and harder to keep track of situations and the names to go with them. He had found himself almost slipping far too often, getting far too close to showing unacceptable closeness.

"Only another month," Sam said, leaning down to kiss his clean-shaven jaw. "By the end of August, you'll be more concerned about which hospital they'll stick me in next, and whether or not you've got a strong opinion and ongoing conflict on my next mentor." She smiled cheekily, as though daring him to disagree.

"As long as you don't make a habit of falling in love with your mentors," said Dylan, standing up without letting go of Sam's hand. It was the fickle whiskey confidence which had permitted him to say that.

"I don't think that's something you need to worry about," Sam said, nonplussed, becoming distracted as she cast her eyes over the desk. It was unusually messy; there was no method to the madness today. She narrowed her eyes as her glance moved from FCEM registration forms to information about becoming a GP. She pointed to the printed sheets. "What're these?" As much as her path was determined, she had been certain that Dylan was pursuing his career in emergency medicine. She knew the consultancy exams' registration deadline was edging closer, something which had been stressing him greatly, but she hadn't known that this stress was pushing him to potentially give up on becoming a consultant altogether.

Letting go of her hand, Dylan pushed all of the papers into a single pile, ready to shove them into his bag when it was time to leave. "Just… covering all bases," he mumbled, fidgeting as he hoped this was enough to throw her off the scent.

The real reason that he was considering General Practice was one that he was not yet ready to share. It was a given, now, that Sam would go on from her F2 year to join the army and be deployed, well, anywhere. She could be sent anywhere around the world. While they had never talked about 'the future,' in Dylan's mind at least it felt as though their futures would be entwined. A GP was more transferable to rural communities in the vicinity of army barracks than a consultant in emergency medicine. But the fact that he and Sam had never looked further than the end of her F1 year (something which he hoped would change as this drew so much closer) meant there had never yet been a good time to disclose that he was thinking of specialising in something that would allow him to go with her as far as possible.

"You don't need to cover all bases," Sam insisted, "Because you're not going to fail your fellowship exams. You're second to none, and everyone knows it except you."

"Or maybe," Dylan replied, kissing her lips briefly, "nobody knows it, except __you.__ "

"Well, that one is not a secret I'm prepared to keep." Being a full five inches shorter than Dylan, Sam lifted herself slightly on her toes to press her lips against his. This was a perfect end to the day, crashing romantically into the one she loved above all others.

Dylan's fingers drummed delicately on the back of her scrubs, as though he was playing the piano along her bra strap. And his mouth tasted strongly of spearmint mouthwash.

* * *

Holby City Hospital, September 2017

On Lily's day off, she woke up shortly after ten in the morning. She had made peace with the occasions when she woke up late, accepting that she did a demanding job and sometimes sleep was more important than having a productive day. When she switched on her phone to send a 'good morning' text to Iain, there was already one waiting in her inbox, from him.

 _ _Trust me to forget my lunch :) See you later, gorgeous x__

Rolling her eyes, she picked the hair-tie free of the messy bun in her hair as she sat up. This was her chance to prove herself as the better option than Sam. She had a spare key to Iain's flat; she could be the epitome of a perfect girlfriend and go and pick up his packed lunch for him. While she had lived her life solidly in the belief that women existed as far more than feeble beings to look after their significant others, desperate times called for desperate measures. Feminism could be thrown out of the window for just one day, if it was all the proof Iain needed to open his eyes and realise exactly what he had.

* * *

Lily had to smile at the total lack of organisation in Iain's flat. It was such a boyish environment, as though he'd never grown up past the teenage boy stage of keeping a messy bedroom, and instead just spread it out further into a whole flat. Nothing like her self-confessed minimalist paradise.

As expected, the Tupperware lunch box sat on the kitchen counter, in plain sight. How he had forgotten it was beyond her. She tugged a banana free of the bunch sitting in the fruit bowl, but didn't replace them. Didn't he know that the very worst place to keep bananas was in the fruit bowl with the rest of the fruit?

She looked around this room that she knew so well, and wondered why she'd never thought to look properly at the photographs pinned to the large noticeboard on the wall opposite the large kitchen window. Perhaps it was that the sun glared off the glossy sheets. But today, Lily had a purpose, although this purpose was snooping and desperation. Not her finest hour.

There were a lot of photos from Iain's army days, from Afghanistan presumably because she didn't know if he'd served anywhere else. He looked so happy - she would never understand the blissed-out expression in so many of the photos, not just on his face but on all the faces around him, even though they were smack-dab in the middle of a war zone. They were fighting a war, risking their lives every time they stepped outside the compound. Their camaraderie must have been something else. Lily examined the faces of the soldiers in the pictures, looking for one individual in particular. And she was there, of course she was. She looked a little younger, as Iain did, and both of them sported deep tans. She featured in a lot of the photos, actually, about half of those which were overtly from Iain's deployments.

Lily was destroying herself every time she even gave the slightest headspace to this issue that wasn't even an issue yet. Her damaged, nearly non-existent self-esteem where relationships were concerned was dropping even lower.

It was just as well that she didn't notice one photo in particular. If Iain realised it was still up, he would most likely take it down, but he hadn't moved these photos for over a year. It was a candid shot, taken by a friend while they were all out of Afghanistan on R&R. The sun was dipping low in the sky, and Iain and Sam were walking barefoot down a beach with white sand, having had more than a little to drink, with their arms draped lazily around each other's shoulders. In the moment after the photo was taken, Iain had turned and kissed Sam's cheek, which had turned into kissing her lips. One thing had led to another, and they had spent another night together.

* * *

Approaching the ambulance station, Lily half-hoped that Iain and Sam were away on a shout, so she could just leave the lunch box with a post-it note kiss on its lid. This would have been a more pleasant experience, she was sure.

Instead, she opened the door to find Iain and Sam sitting at the table in the office, a takeaway pizza between them. She stood awkwardly, not sure what to do. She plastered on a fake smile, covering her disappointment.

"I suppose you won't be needing this then!" she said brightly, dropping it down on the chair by the door.

"That spare key came in handy then," Iain replied, jumping up from his seat and coming over to her. "You're an absolute star, Lily, thank you." He went to kiss her cheek, but she pressed the fingertips of her right hand against his lips.

"You have pizza sauce __here__ and __here__ ," she said, gesturing on her own lips before deciding to assert some dominance here. She unfurled a tissue from the packet in her bag and handed it to Iain. When he was free of sauce, she kissed his lips properly, one hand caressing the back of his neck.

Sam rolled her eyes in the direction of the pizza box. It was so obvious, what Lily was trying to do. And it was working - on arriving back in Holby, Sam had initially wondered if there would be anything left of the Iain she used to know. And while there was, he was very much taken, something which she had to respect. If Lily felt threatened by a friendship which had been built on tour and was therefore about a hundred times stronger than anything civilian, then that was completely on her.

When they were finished kissing, Iain turned back to the pizza box, which still had a few slices of pizza left in it.

"Do you want to stay for pizza, Lily?" Sam offered politely, in an attempt to firefight this awkwardness between them.

Lily wanted nothing more than to pick up the box of pizza and throw it over the pair of them, for acting as though there was nothing more than a basic friendship between them. Had they both conveniently forgotten all of those photographs, how happy they looked with each other? But she accepted the offer and sat with them for a little while, although her insides churned wildly for the entire duration.

It was a relief when her phone chimed and a message arrived from Ethan.

* * *

 _ _Don't suppose you're about today? I know it's your day off, I could just do with a friendly face.__

Ethan, sitting in his office, wanted nothing more than to tell Lily that he didn't just want any friendly face, he needed hers, specifically. How had everything moved so quickly, from passing his fellowship exams and gaining consultant status one minute, to suddenly being in charge of the whole emergency department? He turned his phone over in his hands, unlocking the screen and refreshing his messages, hoping that she would reply. She'd be within her rights to ignore him entirely; he'd been so distant and frequently unkind to her.

* * *

"I need to go, I can't ignore a summons from the clinical lead."

It was only a little white lie.

Autumn was falling quickly over Holby. It was nearing the end of September and the autumn equinox had passed, meaning there was a chill in the air despite the bright sunshine. The short distance between the ambulance station and the emergency department was punctuated by Lily frustratedly kicking through mounds of crunchy, drying leaves, taking out her annoyance on inanimate objects in the hope that she might feel better.

This awfully sticky business with Iain and Sam, this was precisely the reason why she ought to have stood by her five-year plan. If she'd stayed by that, then she'd be married by now, to a doctor or maybe a surgeon. She'd be living in the country on a dermatologist's salary, progressing her career nicely instead of lusting after someone who did not understand why she was simply terrified of both commitment and letting go. Lily scrubbed tears out of her eyes, ashamed that she would turn up in the ED giving everyone the impression that she had been crying.

* * *

Dylan noticed at once that Lily had been crying, when she walked through the doors of the ED trying valiantly to conceal the redness around her eyes by staring at the floor on her way to the Clinical Lead's office. It didn't takeHolmesian deduction to work out that her mood had something to do with the tangible tension arising between herself and Iain with the arrival of Holby's newest paramedic.

* * *

"I didn't realise you were coming," Ethan said, relief leaking from every syllable in his voice as he looked up and saw Lily in the doorway of his office.

Lily interlinked her hands in front of her. "I should have replied to your text, sorry."

Her voice was unstable, weak, and Ethan knew at once there was something wrong. "What's the matter?" he asked. "You're upset."

Shaking her head, Lily refused to tell him. "You're my boss now, Ethan. I'm not going to talk about my relationship with you, it's just not right."

Ethan's face fell. He had been afraid that this would happen with his promotion to Clinical Lead and evidently his friendship with Lily had been damaged along with those he had forged with the rest of the department. He wondered if this would still be the case, if they hadn't fallen out so spectacularly at Cal's funeral. It was resolved now, in any case, each had apologised for things that they shouldn't have said. They had made peace with each other, something which now Ethan was feeling the strain of leadership he really appreciated. No-one else would give him the time of day, now that he was following orders and continually making people unhappy. The rest of the team tread on eggshells around him now, so it was wonderful that that Lily was even here. He couldn't push her to say something that she didn't want to.

"Time to return the question," Lily said. "What made you ask me to come?" She looked away from her friend and concentrated instead on the mess in the office. Unfiled papers, patient notes, it wasn't like Ethan at all. A quick glance at his computer screen showed that he had about eight tabs open.

"I think… I think that I just needed someone to remind me that the sky is not falling down." Ethan pushed his left hand through his hair and sighed, resting his forehead on his palm and squeezing his eyes shut. When he felt Lily's comforting hand on his shoulder, he raised his right hand to meet it.

"The sky's not falling down," Lily affirmed. When Ethan sat up straight again, she wore a warm expression of determination. "What do you need me to do, to make all of this feel better?" Taking charge of the situation before Ethan could even answer, she picked up a pile of papers and began organising them by date. It was a start.

About an hour and a half later, Lily reminded her friend to eat, when despite his insistence that he was fine, his stomach growled loudly.

"You're not invincible, stop pretending," she said firmly.

"Do you want anything, while I'm going?"

Lily's stomach was full of the grating static of jealousy and anxiety, so she shook her head. "Cup of tea would be nice though, thank you."

A text from Iain appeared on the screen of her phone. He wanted to see her, check if she was okay. She dismissed the message entirely without replying. She was needed here, fixing things for her best friend. More than she needed to be reminded of the barbaric closeness of her boyfriend and his ex, in any case.


	4. Chapter 4

****Thank you for the lovely reviews you**** **'** ** **ve left, the feedback really keeps me going! I especially want to thank casfics; your review made me cry a little bit (in a good way, don't worry!)****

 ** **Disclaimer - in the first part of this chapter, I'm quite blunt about mental health. It is purely based on my own experiences; I know that everyone experiences MH differently and you may disagree with the way I've described it.****

 ** **In this chapter, I reference an old episode, S25E34, 'Momentum,' because it's relevant, but the chapter will still make sense if you haven't seen it - although I recommend it if you're like me and enjoy a bit of Dylan angst!****

 ** **And finally, the flashback part of this chapter is set at Christmas… I make no apologies for misplaced festivity (or lack of festivity, as you will read shortly!)****

* * *

Holby, Autumn 2017

On reflection, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder was not creeping back into Dylan's life. It was thundering towards him like a runaway train; as though he was the stereotypical weak character in an old western film, tied to the tracks waiting powerlessly to be decimated by his uncontrollable psychological condition. It was a matter of when, not if.

His mental health, or lack thereof, was a shapeshifter. It always had been. It was a small consolation that in recent years, his experience of mental illness had not been inextricably linked to situations with Sam in them. At least he could reflect on these newer memories without the nostalgia, resentment and (although he didn't approve in the least) bittersweet happiness that accompanied thinking about Sam.

Back at King's, before he was really conscious of the enemy inside his head, he had tapped things as an outlet for the stress he had felt. He had tried to fool himself as much as he had everyone else, telling himself that stress was all it was. Unfortunately, other people had been far easier to convince. If only had been as simple as 'just' tapping things. He could recall the thoughts as clearly as if they were happening at the present moment. It wasn't a voice, not as such, but with its urgent clarity it might as well have been one. An irresistible order, generally without rhyme or reason. __Tap the defib three times, or the next time it won't work and your patient will die.__ There wasn't a pattern to the numbers, either. It could be anything from one to twenty or so. One day stood out in his mind: the day that Sam's cohort of F1's was due to leave and her paperwork was the last outstanding and incomplete. He had been compelled the click the top of his pen top twenty-eight times. Keeping count had been an utter nightmare, especially with the distraction of Sam herself, leaning lazily (or, more accurately, leaning with great relief) against the back of his office door, carefully but swiftly working her hair free of its tight French plait.

Looking around his boat's compact living room, it was a relief that his past obsessive need for symmetry had also passed. It was simply out of the question now, considering Dervla's important but messy presence. Although, 'messy' did her something of a disservice. She had never emptied a bin or rolled in freshly-mown grass to traipse it through the boat. As dogs went, Dylan thought himself quite lucky.

It was also true that he was over his obsessional fear of the number four, that "awful business" as it had once been crassly described to him.

No, these days, his mental state was characterised by deep, constant unease. That he'd suffered the blow of a panic attack in the ED was a grating and lasting source of embarrassment. At least, when that had happened, he had had an ally in David. Someone who understood what it was like to be let down by your brain. It was (another) worry, now that he had pushed David away too, that next time he panicked like that he would have no-one.

But there was a lingering question - __did__ David understand at all? Sure, he had a bank of mental health experience, but he didn't know Dylan's whole truth. David had assured Dylan that Cal's death had been nobody's fault but Scott Ellison's, least of all Dylan's fault. But what David was missing was the knowledge that Dylan had a precedent with death by stabbing. His past in this area was now concealed, shrouded in silence because the last person to have been there on that day and to care about him in any capacity, was now three thousand, six hundred and forty-two miles away. Seven years ago, Zoe had done her best to convince Dylan that he was not omnipotently complicit in the 'accidental' murder of Polly Emmerson. He had barely taken the care to learn her name at the time, but after the promising young paramedic (whose warm heart would ultimately cause her untimely end) had lost her life at the hand of a mental distressed patient whom Dylan had tried to ignore at every opportunity…

Dylan squeezed his hands into fists, feeling his fingernails dig into his palms. His thoughts were accelerating.

The name __Polly Emmerson__ was etched onto his memory as a life he should have been able to save, alongside a host of others.

He had been offered counselling after Cal died. He had refused it, and no-one had pursued his insistence that he had compartmentalised and moved on. It was far more necessary that everyone rally around Ethan; a grief-stricken brother was more important than a (secretly) mentally ill consultant. If Zoe had still been part of the ED team, she might well have argued otherwise.

Having been ensnared by addiction to varying degrees for many years, it didn't baffle Dylan that he was still drawn to and intoxicated by the electricity of the ED atmosphere, despite it throwing him one traumatic event after another. When he wasn't been battered by its impact, he __was__ good at it, picking apart mysteries and fixing people.

* * *

At that moment, Dylan was seated in his living room. A vinyl record played classical music in the background, an untouched cup of coffee sat on the table in front of him and a thick paperback book was propped in his lap. But he hadn't read a word in some time and hadn't been concentrating on the book for far longer. How could he concentrate when he had broken his most important rule?

The blue striped carrier bag by the door contained a large bottle of whiskey. He hadn't kept alcohol on the boat in years, not since Zoe had moved out and he could no longer trust himself to self-regulate anymore. It had been so much easier when he wasn't alone - Zoe would usually drink wine and although it was always about, he hadn't always been compelled to drink it. While she was there, keeping him right, he had considered himself a successfully recovered alcoholic.

Now, staring with a judicious glare at the bag, he was certain that this was no longer the care.

* * *

In the ED the next morning, Dylan (accompanied by that old, familiar pounding headache) was certain that everyone was talking about him. It wasn't really a surprise - he should have expected to be one-half of the new rumours. Perhaps it was the hangover making him react so strongly to it. His intense introversion made this a very private reaction, but it was a reaction nonetheless.

He met an ambulance patient at the door and followed them into resus, listening intently to Sam's handover. It was difficult to separate her in this new capacity from everything that he already knew about her, and equally, everything that he did not know. Her handover was absolutely flawless, not a single stumble on her words or even a moment's pause for breath as she faultlessly reeled off the patient's injuries and statistics. She met his eyes for less than three seconds on arrival, an expression of wonder evident in her glance, before continuing as if it had been any other doctor taking the patient.

It was of no question in Dylan's mind that her time both in military trauma medicine and on the other side of the handover in British hospitals had contributed greatly to her professional perfection.

When she had finished, she looked up at Dylan again for his approval. She blinked once, and he found himself irresistibly drawn to her long eyelashes, as though they were back at King's all those years ago and he was noticing for the first time just how pretty she really was.

But in truth, he was stunned by her ability, momentarily silenced by her handover.

Sam was still staring at him, impatience growing. She wanted to tell him to put his tongue back in (metaphorically of course) because they weren't anything anymore. But out loud, she cleared her throat.

"Alright?"

Dylan blustered. "Yes, of-of course. Um, thank you," he added before Sam dismissed herself and Iain from resus.

When was the last time he had ever __thanked__ a paramedic for their handover?

Damn her, for being so professionally attractive!

* * *

Catterick Garrison, 18th December 2009

Christmas had never been Dylan's favourite time of year, there having been too many unpleasant festive experiences in his childhood. His mother had loved it, painstakingly decorating the house and going to every effort to play happy families. She tried so hard, year in year out. Every year, it would be spoilt: a drunken rage sending the tree flying, a conspicuous absence, a blossoming bruise or a split lip.

But Sam loved Christmas too. She was almost childish in her enthusiasm for the season. Every letter since mid-November (plus the singular phone call she had managed at the end of that month) had been fizzing with anticipation of coming home for Christmas. She'd been slowly bringing him around to liking it too; he'd found himself looking forward to the twenty-fifth almost as much as he looked forward to the day she was flying home.

General Practice in the country didn't compare to emergencies and trauma in London, that much was certain. But this was a necessity, something that he had to do to remain a constant in her life. It was a necessity, but that didn't stop it occasionally becoming mind-numbingly boring, listening to small-talk and gripes, prescribing paracetamol and advising bed rest to people who never listened anyway. Emergency medicine was all pushing and pulling but it was ever-changing, and rare were the occasions when patients would come back and demand continuity of care. All that aside, there was something strangely pleasant about being known, and being cared about even in a minor way by those who recognised him at once as Major Nicholls' husband. There was immense pride in telling people exactly why he had come to work in a GP surgery on an army patch.

* * *

This patient was proving a little more interesting than the rest, and a little more like what he had been used to in London. Of course, there were limitations on the tests Dylan could run from here, and the timescale on these was vastly longer than he would have liked, but a mystery was not something he would turn his nose up at, under any circumstances.

So it was a source of great irritation when Margaret, one of the clinic's secretaries, knocked at the door of Dylan's consultation room and opened it without even waiting for confirmation that she could enter. She was in her mid-sixties, with flyaway hair slowly turning grey and her spectacles balanced on the top of her head. She was firm, and took none of Dylan's more unkind acerbity. But she was also kind; an army widow of many years who had never left the area, preferring to give back to the community which had at one point kept her in one piece.

"Dr Keogh, there's a phone call for you in the office," she said, ignoring the scowl which had been sent her way.

"Can't it wait? I'm a little busy," Dylan said, looking back to his patient.

"Dylan." That had got his attention. "Would I interrupt you with a patient if it wasn't important? You wound me. It's an international call."

Dylan stood up from his desk immediately and walked from the room without another word. He didn't think twice about his patient, who had shrugged off the whole thing. __International call__ was an accepted euphemism around here, for a call from deployed personnel. Everyone knew that they were few and far between, and never without good reason. You didn't say no to those calls.

* * *

In the surgery's office, there was one thing between Dylan and the phone, and that was a young woman filing her nails at the door.

"Move," Dylan said, standing in front of her, all pleasantries and manners going out the window.

"I don't think so," the woman replied, eyeing the few people in the waiting room who were eagerly listening in. "I've been trying to get an appointment since the middle of last week, and there's been 'no-one' to see me."

"That's because it's the week before Christmas and all of the lucky GP's who aren't here, have had their significant others sent home." His temper was rising, and with this, his defensive silence was falling. "Excuse us for wanting a little time with people whom we don't get to see, and who risk their lives just by doing their jobs. My wife is on the phone, her name is Major Samantha Nicholls and she is deployed in Helmand Province. I hear her voice once a month, __at best,__ so I would thank you to get out of my way."

This was the downside to working in a surgery on the __outskirts__ of a patch. There were patients who simply didn't understand. Looking abashed, the woman stepped aside, allowing Dylan into the office. He slammed the door behind him.

"Sam?" he said, seizing the phone and sitting down heavily. He hoped that with his delay, she hadn't had to abandon the call altogether. "Are you still there?"

"Of course I am," came her reply. Usually, when she called, Dylan could practically hear her smiling. The absence of this addition to her voice alerted him to the fact that all was not well. "Wouldn't dream of dragging Dr Grumpy out of an appointment just to hang up again." She was cracking jokes, how could she possibly not sound happy? She teased him all the time, always with at least half a smile.

"What's the matter?" he pressed, holding the phone to his ear but resting his elbow on the table. He closed his eyes, hoping that it wasn't anything too terrible. But then, why wouldn't she wait? She was flying home in two days - unless that was why she was calling.

"I don't even know how -" Her voice cracked. Was she crying?

"No, no, no," Dylan said at once, swallowing the lump in his throat to step up as the husband she needed him to be. "Please, please, don't cry. Whatever it is, I know that you can handle it."

There was a sound of static that Dylan assumed to be Sam running a hand through her hair, although this didn't stop the moment of fear that the call would be cut off unexpectedly. "Sorry," she said.

"You don't have to apologise."

"Right - just, oh for God's sake, I'll have to just come out with it. I'm not coming home for Christmas."

Dylan dropped the phone. It clattered onto the desk and slipped off it, dangling by its curled cord. He felt sick, that awful stomach lurch that came with slipping off the bottom stair or jolting awake in the middle of the night. In the middle of this chaos, there was Sam's voice, calling down the phone still.

"Dylan? Are you alright? Say something."

He picked up the phone. "I'm fine," he said hollowly, knowing that he didn't sound fine and that Sam wouldn't believe that he was fine either. "I have to be," he affirmed. "It wouldn't be without reason."

"No, you're right," Sam replied, sighing. "We - um - we lost three of the lads out of the unit yesterday. That's why I have to stay."

"I'm really sorry about that," Dylan said, realising that somewhere along the line he must have picked up some social graces because he had just thrown her a platitude he usually detested. "Look, I'm sure you did everything you could, this doesn't change anything about you as a doctor."

"I know!" Sam snapped. "But that doesn't change that it happened, does it?!" She paused. "I'm sorry for shouting at you. I just really wanted to come home, and to have our first proper Christmas."

"What was last year, a dress rehearsal?"

"Oh shut up," Sam said, and at last Dylan could hear just a hint of a smile in her words. "Our first __married__ Christmas, I mean."

"I knew what you mean," Dylan conceded, instinctively turning his wedding band on his finger as he spoke. "I just wanted to say something that might make you a little bit more cheerful."

"You're an idiot," Sam said. But she laughed too, even though it wasn't the time to be cheerful, or laughing.

"I know." Silence. "I've missed you."

"I've missed you too, more than I ever thought I would. I want to wake up on Christmas morning beside you and know that it's cold outside but we don't have to go anywhere. I want to open Christmas presents with you, in our house, not in the Officers' Mess."

At that moment, Dylan's heart sank all over again. The last posting date for forces mail to arrive by Christmas Day was 28th November. He hadn't sent anything because Sam was supposed to come home.

* * *

After reluctantly ending the phone call, Dylan let himself out of the office and walked back to his consulting room in silence. His disappointment must have been written all over him because no-one broke his stride.

Behind the safety of his closed door, Dylan pulled the tinsel from the door frame (his feeble attempt to avoid being called a grinch) and threw it into the bin so he didn't have to look at it. It didn't feel much like Christmas anymore. He paced the room, hands at the back of his neck, trying to return his face to his expression of neutrality that everyone here had come to expect. But it was impossible.

He didn't cry until his brain started to convince him that he needed a drink.

There came a cautious knock at the door, and he swung it open straight away, perhaps more forcefully than was necessary.

"Was it bad news?" It was Margaret, of course it was. No-one else would have dared to come anywhere near him with the possibility of him being in a bad mood.

Perhaps his lack of brash response was more telling than anything he said. "No - not bad. I mean, yes, bad, but Sam's fine. She's just had her leave cancelled, that's all."

The older woman reached out a hand to Dylan's shoulder. "I'm sorry, that's not what you needed to hear today, is it?"

Dylan just shook his head. He pinched the bridge of his nose. "You can cancel the on-call cover for the twenty-fifth. I'll do it."

"Are you sure? If I were you, I'd take the day anyway and just have it off, regardless of -"

"No, I will take the on-call. I can do more good doing that; I categorically do not want to sit in an empty house doing nothing when everyone else is having their Christmas."

* * *

He bought a large bottle of whiskey on his way home that night, the only way to quiet the OCD that had landed back in his brain with such ease that it felt as though it had never left.


	5. Chapter 5

**Lots of angst and not much joy in this chapter, I'm afraid!**

* * *

Brize Norton, 7th August 2011

The first homecoming, at the conclusion of Sam's debut tour, had been so different. It had been a tangled, spontaneous hug, unstoppable kisses, sparks flying despite the fact he hadn't slept well in weeks and she'd been desperate for a proper shower at home, after a long flight and months of Afghan dust. None of that had been even vaguely relevant in the grand scheme of things, because above all else they were a relatively new couple reunited by the final close of extended separateness.

She should have known that the perfection would not last.

The darkest of dark days had come, and passed, shattering the very foundations of their relationship. In the end, it had been a relief to join her unit, albeit belatedly, on their next tour; an escape which finally shone some light back into her life. She supposed that she should not be so quick to prefer Helmand to her husband. But he had coped with the Bad Thing terribly too, and there were only so many times that she could insist that she was fine, that he hadn't been to blame, and that he had to find a way to move past it as well.

It was all a façade though. She didn't even have a concrete memento of that time, except her hospital bracelet, and it wasn't as though she could tuck that into a pocket and keep it with her as a reminder of what might have been. She carried her thoughts instead, which left far deeper scars.

* * *

As she walked out to meet Dylan this time, she felt all of the butterflies she'd always had on seeing him. But they were stifled, falling like lead balloons with the knowledge of what she'd done, what he'd done, and everything that hadn't been done.

When she carefully set her bag down on the ground, she squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, wishing that when she opened them, it would all feel different.

When she leaned into his arms, he hugged her tighter than she hugged him.

When she rested her head against his shoulder, his clothes smelled of alcohol.

A tear slipped down her cheek, which she would say later was relief at finally being home after a hellish tour.

* * *

Holby, November 2017

Sam had been back in Holby for six weeks, causing deep seismic shifts in the already-damaged team.

* * *

Where Lily might have spent her breaks with Iain when this was possible, she was now spending increasing quantities of her time with Ethan. He had been her first friend in the ED, the only one to see past her abrasiveness and see someone more than the image she had projected. Aside from Iain, he was still her only friend. Ethan might have contested the fact, but he needed a friend: he was still grieving the sudden death of his brother and had been catapulted all at once into the position of Clinical Lead. Privately, Lily wondered what he felt he owed to Mrs Beauchamp, to be working himself into the ground in his desperation to prove himself like this. He obviously wasn't going to talk about it any time soon, however, so the best Lily could do for her friend was to simply be present.

A smile, every now and then; chased paperwork when he didn't have the patience; endless cups of tea, a necessary fuel when she had drawn the line at energy drinks (the least nurturing drink on the planet); taking the time to ask how he was coping, and caring about the answer.

It was almost certainly true that Lily was doing all of this out of kindness, of course, but also out of a need not to be anywhere near Iain when Sam was also present.

* * *

For Sam, fitting back into the ED had been simple. By and large, she had been accepted without question; although it was anyone's guess, how much had been pieced together. That was the pleasure and the downfall of dropping in and out of the department: not knowing.

It was not the first time she had been very aware of being a talking point. Having played the part of whistle-blower at her final hospital, she was no stranger to eyes following her in a department, hushed whispers sticking to her like a shadow.

She tried to tell herself that working with Dylan again was not difficult, that he was just another grumpy consultant. Every hospital had one. But she was lying to herself.

At times, working with him now was exactly as easy as it had always been. It was like the good old days, when they worked seamlessly at King's, easily and accurately predicting each other's response to any given stimulus. But the occasional ease was almost harder than the times when it was clunky and awkward, when it felt as though all eyes were on them for all the wrong reasons. The times when it was right made her miss so much the short period when it was easy without effort, because it was so hard to do it without trying now. She missed how simple it was back then — but how had she found it so, with all the sneaking about and springing apart with every approaching footstep?

It wasn't the situation that she was nostalgic for at all, it was the people they used to be.

* * *

At two-thirty in the afternoon, Lily finally stopped to breathe and wonder if she was hungry, and wonder if Ethan had had a chance to do the same. She'd seen him in resus that morning, leading a difficult paediatric trauma case that had concluded with social services and a police presence. There had been a glazed worry in his eyes, even from Lily's fair distance, due to having to manage a situation with the same officers who had been involved in Cal's murder inquiry. Ethan had been holed up in his office ever since; Lily found herself drawn to making sure he was alright, although not without stopping at the department's little shop first.

* * *

She tapped on the glass pane in the door, fractionally later than realising he was resting his head on the desk. Guiltily, she hoped he was neither crying nor asleep — he wouldn't be sitting in that position without good reason. His face was pale and it seemed to take Ethan considerable effort to turn his mouth upwards towards a smile. Balancing two bottles of water and two boxed sandwiches with her left arm, Lily let herself in, concealing most of her worries about the Clinical Lead.

"Are you feeling okay?" she asked. "I only ask, because I saw some of the backlash of that paeds trauma, and I know those two officers were… Cal's, you know. I just wanted to check."

Ethan's shoulders drooped as he gestured for Lily to sit down. "Why is my impulse to insist that I'm fine? It's not as if you'd believe me."

"You're right, I really would not believe you." It was easy, to be honest with him. Their friendship worked because they could read each other.

"Thank you for noticing, about them. It wasn't easy… it made me think —" He sneezed a few times, interrupting his speech and his train of thought.

"Think about Cal?" Lily pre-empted, beginning to wonder if Ethan's complexion was anything to do with his chain-sneezing.

Ethan nodded. "Yeah."

"Anyone could have noticed, anyone could have come and asked if it had bothered you." Lily frowned unhappily. "Is that… the only thing on your mind? You looked like you were asleep when I knocked, I hope I didn't disturb you."

Shaking his head, Ethan replied, "I'm just stressed. And maybe coming down with a cold, talk about timing."

She examined him more closely. The edges of his nostrils were pink, an immediate tell-tale that he'd been blowing his nose frequently. His eyes looked a little watery; there was no way of knowing for sure if this was tied to his brother or to being unwell.

"Ethan?"

When she had his full concentration, she carefully threw him one of the sandwich boxes she'd brought in (which he caught with some uncertainty) and balanced one of the bottles of water on his desk.

"It might make you feel better, to have something in your stomach." It was a sure bet that he hadn't eaten, in all the time that he'd been in here.

"You really didn't have to do that, Lily." He checked the label as he unpicked and opened the box, wondering if it was pure chance that she'd brought him a cheese sandwich while keeping ham for herself. Had she really retained that tiny bit of information about him?

"Maybe not, and yet here I am," she said firmly.

"Well, thank you."

* * *

Iain thought that working with Sam again was fantastic. For all the world, it felt like the good old days, before everything got complicated. They laughed and joked, singing badly in the ambulance at every opportunity. It was so easy to work with her.

But for all the fun that he was having, the repeated absence of Lily was nearly unbearable. Since the first time she had ignored his message in favour of being there for Ethan, it had become normal, expected, even.

When it so obviously made her unhappy that he was rekindling a once-brilliant friendship with Sam, why was she retaliating by doing exactly the same thing back to him?

* * *

"Am I such an awful Clinical Lead?"

This question caught Lily off-guard. "Of course not!"

Ethan raised his eyebrows. "Then why do I feel like everyone is walking on eggshells around me?"

"They are," Lily began, "but don't you remember us all doing the same when Mrs Beauchamp took over the ED? They're trying to work you out, and they haven't got much to go on." She paused, hoping she hadn't overstepped a line. "I'm almost certain that you're feeling so unhappy about that because you're not feeling well. I think you should go home, and look after yourself —"

"There's fat chance of that happening."

"If you can't make a decision like that when you are quite literally the one in charge, then when can you?" Lily countered quickly.

"When I'm not being slated all over the internet!" Ethan said in frustration, slamming a hand down on his desk.

Lily was taken aback by this. "What?"

He clicked on a new tab in his internet browser, typed ' _ _Holby rage in resus__ ' and turned the screen so that Lily could see. "This. __This__ is why I can't go home sick, because I've now got an inbox full of emails from journalists full of inflammatory questions, and worse, Jac Naylor, trying to tell me what to do. Someone in here has got it in for me, and now half the country knows about it!"

* * *

In the early afternoon of November 5th, Lily braved the ambulance station for the first time in a long time. She had __seen__ Iain, of course, since Sam's return, but only in a professional capacity. Her contact with him had been restricted to their normal stream of texts, not even phone calls. It was destroying her, when he had the power to make her feel so __good.__

It was pure relief that flooded her system on seeing him again, especially since Sam was not there. When she stood at the open end of an ambulance which Iain was cleaning, it took a second for him to see her, but he bounded down the ambulance to her.

He jumped off the back and hugged her so hard that he lifted her off the ground, all previous annoyances and minor jealousies temporarily forgotten.

"Do I take it then, that you missed me, as much as I missed you?" she asked, smiling.

"Oh yeah," Iain affirmed. "Absolutely."

"I feel terrible, I think I was privy to this knowledge before and completely forgotten it, but you're not working late tonight, are you?" She was holding his hand, rubbing his calloused knuckles and the baby-smooth skin between them.

Iain laughed. "You always have to beat around the bush, don't you? I'm not on shift for the bonfire rush this year, thank god. I come off shift at five. You?"

Sighing with relief, Lily smiled too. "I'm so glad to hear you say that. I'm finishing at six. We've spent next to no time together lately, and I'm really sorry. Would you like to go to the fireworks with me, in the park?"

"Hmm, I'll have to check the diary," Iain said, deadpan for all of three seconds before bursting out laughing. "I'd like that a lot, Lily, thank you. I've been lost without you."

Having a friend in Sam was one thing, but nothing compared to the best friend that he had in Lily. She was smart, and funny, and utterly gorgeous, even after shifts that took her to hell and back.

"I'll be in the pub when you finish, alright?"

"Then I will meet you there, at quarter past six. The fireworks start at seven; that gives us plenty of time to walk there." She couldn't help narrating her thoughts, it was just the way she was.

"M'lady, it's a date," Iain said, keeping a gentle hold on her hand and bowing ostentatiously.

* * *

Tired, but nonetheless looking forward to her evening, Lily headed out of the ED shortly after six o'clock. It was dark, street-lights glowing in the sharply chilly air.

A soon-to-be patient staggered past her into the hospital, wearing mismatched clothes and the unmistakeable aroma of alcohol. He was closely tailed by Dr Keogh, whose name she had noticed that afternoon as being on the rota for tonight's night shift. It wouldn't be an easy one tonight; bonfire injuries would be coming thick and fast, very soon if not already. From her cursory glance though, she saw that the consultant wore an expression of concern almost as severe as the way she was feeling herself. For the first time, she wondered to herself how different they were. Although he would verbalise it only when hell froze over, perhaps her worries about Sam Nicholls being back in Holby and back in close proximity with an ex-lover, weren't dissimilar to whatever turmoil could be awakened by one's estranged ex-wife waltzing back into the foreground. Still, while she could sympathise, she wasn't about to try and put words in his mouth or start a conversation she had no idea how to begin, never mind finish.

* * *

When she pushed open the door of the Hope and Anchor, Lily's eyes at once met the sight of Iain and Sam sitting at the bar, sharing a conversation, each with a nearly-empty glass in front of them. It was all fine (aside from her usual spike of jealousy) and then as Lily stood in the doorway, she saw Sam take Iain's face in her two hands.

* * *

"Ah, get off, you're freezing!" Iain said, laughing as much as Sam was while he unhooked her cold hands from his cheeks.

"I told you I was cold!" Sam said, looking past Iain to the door as Lily's figure retreated at a great pace.

Iain turned around too, then jumped up from his bar stool. He swore under his breath. "I'll be back in a minute."

* * *

Tears slid out of Lily's eyes. She hated what she had become, hated that one person had pushed her to this point. And she knew why, too. It had dawned on her as soon as she'd seen Iain allow Sam's hands to linger on his face. It would have been different if Sam was less… flawless. She was quick-witted, entertaining by anyone's judgement except Lily's (although even she could not argue against some of her remarks being at least a bit funny) and she seemed to have such an easy friendship with everyone (with two significant exceptions, obviously.) Lily had tried so hard to tell herself that nothing would happen, that she was being unnecessarily paranoid and overly affected by jealousy.

"Lily!"

She stopped her hasty escape and turned around to face her boyfriend, tears still tracking down her cheeks. Messily, she scrubbed them away.

"Where are you going?" Iain called, striding out until he was right by her.

"Home," Lily replied, sniffing unattractively.

"What, are we just not doing the fireworks now?" It was becoming clear to him that Lily had seen something, added two and two to make five and jumped to every single wrong conclusion. The pub. Sam. __Sam.__ He sighed.

"It's quite obvious that I am not the one you'd like to spend your evening with." Lily narrowed her eyebrows and rubbed her eyes again, past caring about her eyeliner. "The same one you've liked to spend all of your time with lately," she spat.

This, and her implied accusation that he was doing far more than 'spending time' with Sam, got Iain's back up straight away. "That's not fair though is it? Which one of us has been spending all of her time sucking up to the boss? That certainly ain't me!"

Lily gasped. It would have been laughably theatrical if she wasn't so deeply offended. "That's not the same at all! Ethan is my best friend, he has been for years and he's going through a difficult time. He needed me. Cal was murdered, something went down between him and Mrs Beauchamp in London, and now he's trying to run a department when no-one seems to be on his side. He needs me; all I'm trying to do is help him!"

"And what about Sam? What about __my__ best friend? You forget we were __on tour__ together, that makes friends about a hundred times stronger than some botched effort between a Clinical Lead and a registrar with designs above her station!"

They were shouting back and forth now, throwing caution to the wind of what might be overheard, but Lily couldn't allow herself to shout her next attack. Although rumours were rife, she would not be party to airing somebody else's dirty laundry in public. She dropped her tone. Before she knew it, she was going in for the kill. "You were on tour together, and she had __an affair__ with you! She was __married__ and you were her better offer." Her insecurities were pouring out now, mortified by her fear of Sam taking Iain away from her when he was the only one who'd ever treated her quite so wonderfully.

Would she be feeling the same way if she hadn't automatically sided with Dr Keogh on hearing about the affair in the first place? And why was she siding with him at all? It wasn't as if he'd ever done anything for her. Excepting that time she had quite literally passed out on him in cubicles, and he'd stopped her doing herself any real injury. Come to think of it, he'd been exceptionally kind to her afterwards — exceptionally kind for him, obviously. But that was irrelevant now.

"How can I trust you, Iain, knowing all of that? I'm not blind, or quite as emotionally unintelligent as people seem to think I am! I see you with her, like old times. How am I supposed to trust you?"

"Lily, you know that I —" He would have said that he loved her, reminded her of the fact, but when they were both so angry, and when she was arguing with him using such terrible dredged-up untruths, he couldn't bring himself to say it, or even feel it. "This is a joke."

"It's not a joke, because she's here, she's back, and I'm terrified of how she's made me feel!" Lily's voice was rising in upset and panic. Her throat ached, waves of nausea rolling and breaking in the pit of her stomach. She was acutely aware that they were very close to passing the point of no return, if they hadn't passed it already.

* * *

Half-chasing the drunken patient whom he had been attempting to treat, Dylan stepped out of the ED and was standing looking towards the pub as the end of Lily and Iain's dispute unfolded. Their figures weren't completely clear in the dark, but they were close to a street-light, the orange light partially illuminating them. It didn't take much effort to hear what was going on, anyway. No sirens around, just yet.

He folded his arms, furious that Sam's return was no longer just his problem.

* * *

Lily suppressed a sob. She squeezed her eyes shut, and shook Iain's hand away when he reached out to her. "Do you have feelings for her?" she asked, opening her eyes and scrutinising Iain's face.

"Do I __WHAT?__ " Iain exploded. "Rubbish, you don't have a clue what you're talking about. You don't know the first thing about her, or her marriage, and if you think there's anything… anything __more__ between us, then you obviously don't know anything about me either."

"Just answer the question!" She sounded almost hysterical, but she was out of control. "Do you still have feelings for her?" Iain's silence was worse than an answer, when it did come.

"Obviously not, this is such a bullshit accusation!"

Lily cried, unable to hide it anymore. It hurt too much. Running a hand through her hair, she kept going. "It's not, Iain, and you know it's not. You wouldn't have c-come out after me if you didn't have s-something to say about what - happened between you a-and - her, sitting at - that - bar."

There was nothing to explain! She wouldn't believe him anyway, not now. "Make me understand, Lily, because I can't. What the hell is this about?" Iain sighed.

She couldn't explain it. Couldn't put into words everything that Sam's return had made her feel. "People like you just don't love people like me," she said weakly, at last. She didn't add that people like him loved people exactly like Sam.

"I did," he replied, stepping back from Lily. His eyes were gradually turning red around the edges now too, holding in tears that had been anger but were now regret, and realisation of what was happening.

* * *

Watching Lily and Iain step apart from each other as their fight came to an end, Dylan couldn't stand to see anymore. Not because his 'patient' had decided to make a return, chance would be a fine thing, but because he'd spent too long getting involved in their business. He couldn't let himself get embroiled in all of that. He had no place in it anyway, and he'd only make it a thousand times worse.

He headed into the hospital and back into resus, where he could actually be useful.

* * *

"Did?" The past tense of what her boyfriend ( _ _was__ he still her boyfriend?) had said hit Lily harder than anything else. This was it. She'd blown it.

Iain shrugged, sticking his hands into his pockets. He blew out a long breath. "Yeah."

There was an agonising silence.

"But if you don't trust me, and that's what this boils down to, that you can't trust me, then I haven't got the energy for this."

* * *

 **Let me know what you think x  
**


	6. Chapter 6

**Hi, I'm back! Uni things have taken over a little bit in the last couple of weeks, sorry for the gap! Not too long before my long summer break now :)**

* * *

Holby City Hospital, November 2017

It was awkward and embarrassing when Lily accepted a patient from Iain and Sam. Having to maintain utmost professionalism in resus and communicate effectively with them, however, was far worse. She felt so watched, as if everyone was daring her to make this situation even more difficult than it already was. But if she felt judged by everybody else, this was nothing compared to how harshly she was judging herself.

She had brought this situation upon herself. She had been exceptionally stupid to accuse there being anything between Sam and Iain without concrete proof. For someone so logically-minded, someone who only ever ruled with her head, Lily had let herself down. It was blindingly obvious now, that there was a special kind of friendship between the two paramedics; Iain had not been Lily to say that relationships built on tour were made of strong stuff. But still, even when Lily was mentally punishing herself for the foolish decision she had made, and second-guessing herself at every opportunity, there was still so much conflict in her mind. If it was __just__ friendship, then why was she still so painfully jealous?

Nothing stayed private for long in the ED: by lunchtime, she'd heard whispers, or worse, been met by instantaneous silence on entering a space. It was grating. Lily had spent so long on the periphery of the team when she'd started out as a pushy, blinkered F2. Somehow, she had worked her way to uneasy and then mildly easy acceptance. But now, she found herself ousted to the nether social reaches, out on her own again. Letting down her frosty guard had softened her somewhat; she wished she could be blinkered once more. She could no longer blank it all out and act as though she did not care.

* * *

"Is everything okay, Lily?" Elle asked delicately, even though her answer was abundantly clear without being vocalised by the registrar at all.

Lily sat up straighter in the tall chair she had chosen by the staff room's breakfast bar. She turned too, so that her back was no longer to Dr Gardner. "Um, yes, of course," she lied. "Why?" __Breezy__ and __nonchalant__ had never been in her repertoire of skills.

Elle shook her head a little sadly. "No reason, it's nothing." There was __something__ going on with Lily, but obviously she wasn't going to share it. "I've got something for you, actually."

"Oh?"

Elle headed over to her locker and opened it to retrieve an email that she had printed that morning. "Here, I was forwarded this, and it's not my thing at all, but it might be yours. When opportunity comes knocking, et cetera." She handed the sheet of paper to Lily, who seemed to brighten a little.

It was a notice for available research positions, although Lily's heart leapt into her throat when she realised that they were situated in Hong Kong. She didn't know what to say; she wasn't sure whether the temptation to escape entirely from the ED might fade if she was suddenly six thousand miles away. Rendered slightly speechless, she managed to stammer out, "wow, just… what an opportunity. Wow." Then she excused herself clumsily from the conversation, folded the printed email into perfect quarters and walked out of the room in the hope that she was projecting control rather than blind uncertainty.

* * *

Behind the locked door of a toilet cubicle, she folded, crumpled, and cried.

She felt incredibly guilty for wanting Ethan's level head and distance to talk her out of her impossible confusion. While she knew this was what she wanted, she equally couldn't shake Iain's accusation outside the pub that she had been spending far too much time with the Clinical Lead. He was inside her head now, making her feel awful for wanting her best friend, who was the only one who'd listen to this whole thing and remind her that the world would keep turning when it was over. At that moment, Lily was very grateful for having resisted talking about Iain and Sam with Ethan; his perspective on it was not skewed in anyone's favour or otherwise.

She was all set to go looking for him, when she remembered that his office was dark and had been empty all day. He had stubbornly resisted her advice to take a day off work until he'd had no choice — in the end, it had been Charlie that convinced him that he was too sick to be in work. His perfect attendance record finally marred, he wasn't here when Lily really needed him to be.

* * *

Oxford, August 2011

Theirs was an intense relationship. The yin and yang had held them together for four and a half years.

They either lived in such proximity that they were barely out of each other's earshot, or they were three and a half thousand miles apart. They spoke every day or not for six weeks. The frequency of exchanged letters was fairly constant, however. They argued fiercely or they would sit in the same square foot for hours doing everything and nothing. They turned the radio up loud or sat in silence. They didn't drink at all or they couldn't remember the night before (an arrangement from which Sam seemed to recover far faster than Dylan.) They were so close that they couldn't let go, or they were solitary. They were intensely in love or intensely out of love.

It was so painfully difficult, this decision to walk away.

Sam had thought that once she had made the decision to leave her husband, her reason for doing so would stay the same: she was leaving selfishly, having damaged herself with the hurt she brought by sleeping with somebody else. But in the five short days that she had been back on English soil, her reason had changed.

In confessing her affair, she had expected an explosion. She thought that she could accurately predict this extreme in their marriage, or what was left of it. She'd thought that there was more left of it. She had expected an explosion but had been met by silence. At first, she'd wondered if he had heard her, if he hadn't realised exactly what she'd said.

"Don't make me say it again, Dylan, please."

"No need, heard you the first time."

Then silence, a shrug, and a reach for a glass that was already half empty.

Up until the point he'd reached for the glass, she'd still clung to a hope that they could move past seeing his drinking laid bare had shown her that there was no hope. If he couldn't even look her in the eye and tell her that she'd screwed it all up, if he'd rather look into the bottom of a whiskey, then what was there left to save?

She had lasted two and a half minutes of silence, staring blankly at the six o'clock news, before retreating and curling up in bed. She couldn't even read; she couldn't concentrate on the words and hold them in her mind long enough when she knew that Dylan was downstairs drinking himself to oblivion. She stared at the wall until she succumbed to sleep.

Now she was packing a bag, she was relieved that they didn't live on a patch this time, so it would be simple for her to find somewhere to go, and for the end of their marriage to not become common knowledge by the end of the afternoon.

In the back of her wardrobe, pushed under winter clothes that she hadn't touched in years, there was a shoebox full of things that made her want to change her mind, put all her belongings back and stay. They were just little things, things that she thought that Dylan would have thrown out years ago.

Two hospital IDs, from King's. His and hers — in a moment of youthful madness she had tied them together when neither were needed anymore. They were still looped and tightly tied, intertwined exactly as they had been at the moment she had bonded these two small inanimate objects.

There was a photograph from a Christmas party. When she turned it over, Dylan's handwriting stated that it was Christmas 2007. It wasn't crisply focused, instead it was a little fuzzy, perhaps matching their minds in that moment (their past selves in the photograph clasped champagne flutes, and she didn't think they were their first.) But they were both smiling. __Dylan was smiling.__ She tucked the photo back into the box, behind the hospital ID that wore a far more familiar expression. When was the last time she had seen Dylan smile, or exhibit any of his behaviours that were equivalent to that slightest happy twitch of his lips?

She picked out a small pot of paint, one of those testers that were usually emptied and discarded. By the looks of it, a thin crust of pain lay unevenly at the bottom of the pot. The colour was a blue so light it was nearly white. The colour that she had coerced Dylan into choosing when they had repainted parts of his flat during the summer of 2007. He'd been obstinately indecisive, and in the end, she had given him two options from a line-up that he'd seemed to think were acceptable. This had been the result, although she couldn't think why he would have kept the tester pot. It hadn't been a historic event. It hadn't even been a particularly good paint job; she recalled picking emulsion from the ends of her two plaits that evening, after washing her hair and lazily half-drying it before weaving it into two French plaits, while they watched QI over takeaway pizza.

This box tied up so many memories; Sam squeezed her eyes shut and pinched the bridge of her nose as she felt a dull ache in her chest, trying to convince herself that leaving was for the best.

She rummaged further into the box's layers of years and moments.

Their wedding photograph.

Part of her, a large part really, wanted to go through everything in this box. She wanted to look at everything that Dylan had deemed important enough to keep and let it all convince her heart to stay.

And then she found the pregnancy test.

At the bottom of the box, she plucked out the smooth stick of plastic; the stacked photographs, letters and notes had concealed it so she was relying on her touch to identify it until she pulled it free of the box. She dropped it onto the carpet beside her as if it had given her an electric shock.

She needed to hold onto it, allow herself to cry over it once more, and keep holding it until Dylan came home to tell her it was time to put it away. But she was getting swept away in wistful fantasy; returning her mind to reality meant returning to flaring anger and bitterness.

Why the hell had he kept that? Why would he want to remember that? What was he thinking?

That was the problem though. He wasn't thinking. He was just drowning every intelligent thought with copious amounts of alcohol, and it broke Sam's heart. If he'd abandoned all of these memories in her wardrobe, where he didn't have to look at them, then obviously he didn't want them anymore and it had just been too much of an inconvenience to remember to throw them out in between disposing of so many glass bottles.

She tucked everything haphazardly back into the shoebox, replaced the lid and went on with packing her things to leave.

* * *

By the time Dylan walked in from work, her big rucksack was sitting calmly in the hall beside a small holdall. She was perched on the edge of the sofa: she hadn't found it in her to walk out without saying goodbye.

"Sam?" she heard him call.

She walked out of the living room, her boots laced and jacket half-zipped. Her insides crumbled when she saw the expression on his face: confusion, hurt, realisation, guilt? Maybe the guilt was wishful thinking. Maybe it was anger instead. She stopped trying to read him; it wasn't helping.

"What's going on?" he asked, standing in the place where he had frozen on noticing her bags. They were three feet apart, but it might as well have been three miles. This at least told Sam that she was doing the right thing: feeling alone when she was in the same room as her husband was not how things were supposed to be. "This doesn't have to happen, we can talk about this. We can fix it."

"Dylan, stop," she pleaded. She clasped her hands together in front of her mouth, and saw his face fall further before she remembered that she had pulled off her engagement and wedding rings and slipped them onto the chain around her neck. They were still with her, she wasn't ready to let go yet, but she wasn't about to allow Dylan to think this too. "You never listen, least of all when I want — when I need — to talk about us. But please, __please__ hear me now. I've spent months on the front line, and still, leaving you is, without doubt, the hardest thing—"

"Leaving? You're not - you're not leaving, are you?"

Sam could smell something familiar on his breath that instantly boiled her blood. "Leaving?! You're lucky I'm not reporting you to the GMC."


	7. Chapter 7

**While my St George's chapter is not happy in the slightest, how good a St George's have we just had? Sunshine, a royal baby, and my 20th birthday :) Despite the very upsetting subject matter in this flashback, I wanted to set something on St George's day and make a point of it being April 23rd because no-one ever knows when St George's is - which is a shame in comparison to all the epic celebrations for St Patrick's day (which I'm not belittling in the slightest, by the way, I love it with all my half-Irish heart!)**

* * *

Catterick Garrison, St George's Day 2010

Dylan was extremely happy to have his wife back in their little cottage. It felt so much more normal to have her tripping over Dervla (while the pair were fond of each other, they were not used to living around each other, with usually amusing consequences) and making a mess again. Sam had had a week's leave, three and half months ago, and although it had been a glorious week, it was wonderful now to have her back for the best part of a month before she deployed again. He did his best not to keep the dreaded d-word in his mind for too long — if he got stuck on it then his OCD tendencies came back to interrupt his wife and push him closer to alcohol. He had been sober for six days before Sam had returned, and she had been back since the end of March, during which time he hadn't had a drink even once. He hoped that he could pass muster for a normal husband until she was gone again. It was a cruel paradox: he hated her being away because it drove him to drink even more than daily life usually did, but he needed her far away so he could drink in peace.

However, if his suspicions proved true, he might have to actually get himself sober for good, because she would be on English soil for far longer than her allotted demobilisation.

She'd had three 'vomiting bugs' since she had been at home, and not the usual twenty-four-hours-and-over bugs either. These had been three-day-long bouts (minimum) of near constant sickness, which she had done exceptionally well to hide from her unit. It was her bad luck that another had come on in the last day or so when she'd planned to spend tonight in the pub. There was an English-by-birth Irish soldier among her fellow officers, whose idea it had been to create their own national holiday out of St George's day — Sam had already freely commented that he was just trying to make up for having been deployed for St Patrick's day.

But she _had_ been looking forward to going out, until she'd gotten up from the sofa in a terrible rush while they'd been watching QI the previous evening, and returned with watering eyes and a starkly pale face.

* * *

"Again?" Dylan asked quietly, standing up at once as she nodded and heading to the kitchen for a glass of cold water. He returned to the room armed with a plastic bucket too, and despite the fact that Sam looked really unwell, she scoffed weakly with disgust.

"What are you doing with that bucket?" she asked croakily.

"Forgive me, but are you, or are not, sick _again?_ Hence, sick bucket." He was firm but there were no sharp edges in his voice.

"Alright," Sam said, not having the energy to dispute him, which spoke volumes about how she was feeling. "I'll be fine, just not used to…" But she didn't have an end to that sentence.

Dylan carefully slid onto the sofa beside her, and then turned first himself, and then Sam, so that she was sitting against his chest, between his legs. "So is it me that you're not used to? Dervla maybe, or English rain?"

Sam rested her head back, before weakly telling him to shut up. She tensed as another wave of nausea crashed over her, and let out a nearly-inaudible groan as she braced herself to vomit yet again, but it didn't come, and she relaxed. "I'll be better tomorrow," she mumbled. "I'm not missing… what're they calling it? St Patrick's 2.0."

* * *

After a night of rest, Sam's winning streak was broken on the morning of the twenty-third. When she returned to bed, her cotton pyjamas creased by sleep and kneeling on the bathroom floor, she let out a sigh of frustration.

"Why have I been ill non-stop since coming home, and I haven't managed to make you sick yet?"

Now was not the time for wise-cracks about Dylan's cast-iron immune system, nor would an observation be welcome that the thing most likely making Sam so ill was definitely not contagious.

* * *

That afternoon, Sam had brightened considerably, even going so far as to accompany Dylan when he took Dervla for a walk (which he discreetly and drastically shortened.) He stopped on the pavement when they were nearly home, a few feet from the tiny chemist's shop at this end of their lane. St George's bunting was strung across the shop front, a line of little white flags with bright red crosses.

"Wait here with Dervla, for me?" he said, looking into Sam's eyes as though wishing she would read his mind and instinctively know what he was going to buy.

Sam leaned against the post-box, tired by the short walk. "Okay," she agreed. "Why?"

Sighing, Dylan came straight out with it. "I'm going to buy you a pregnancy test. So that we know for sure." He had expected her to splutter with laughter, tell him not to be so stupid and to take her home so she could have a nap. Instead, she looked up at the grim sky, realisation spreading across her face.

"I'll go. If people are going to talk, they might as well do it accurately. Straight from the horse's mouth. I can't believe that I was so stupid and so blind."

"In fairness, when you've been ill, you've been so ill that you've barely had the ability for coherent thought. You've had no distance to put two and two together like you would have been able to do, had it had been a patient in an ED. Just go and get it over with."

But Sam had more to worry about than her medical stupidity. If this test was positive… If she'd conceived during that brief spell of leave in January, then she'd been pregnant in a war zone. The stress of that had been immense; who knew what damage she could have done. Why did she have to have such a god-damned complicated job? Why couldn't she have been happy with life in an English Emergency Department?

* * *

"Stop pacing, Dylan, I'm worried enough without thinking we'll be pulled up in the march-out for having carpet with holes in it!"

"I'd stop pacing if I had an answer!"

"I'd give you an answer if you'd just be patient and wait another ninety seconds!"

They weren't really cross with each other, but they could go from nought to a hundred in a matter of seconds.

Ninety seconds passed in silence, after which time Sam stood up from the kitchen table to go and retrieve the test from the bathroom. She froze in the doorway and turned back to face her husband with concern etched on her face.

"What?" Dylan said quickly.

"I don't want to look."

"You'd rather vomit through another tour and wait for the army to find out first?"

"Oh shut _up_ Dylan! If I've only been sick since coming off deployment, then that doesn't make sense — and if I got pregnant in January, then I was running around bloody Helmand Province with… with a baby inside me! Do you have any idea how messed up that is, not to mention _not allowed_?" She pressed her palms together and put her fingertips to her lips, before putting both hands on the crown of her head and scrunching them into her hair. Her breathing had picked up, and she would have cried if only she hadn't spent so long on tour suppressing emotion that she couldn't let her guard down now, knowing that she was meant to be deploying again in the first week of May.

Dylan walked over to her. Slowly, he took her hands out of her hair and put them gently by her sides. "Whatever happens, we will deal with it. I picked a terrible time to be snippy with you; I'm sorry. Whatever happens, _I'm still here._ The fact that I'm still _me,_ is probably less than ideal, but I'm here, and I love you." He kissed her lips gently. "I'll come with you."

They looked at the test together: the little indicator of positivity could not be clearer.

"I suppose that's that, then," Sam whispered, lifting her t-shirt and looking down at her unchanged stomach. "We're not going out tonight." It was the easiest way to fill the silence, even though she highly doubted she would have made it out even if they hadn't just got this life-changing news. She pressed her right hand to her bare skin and rubbed her thumb up and down. She had always thought that she and Dylan might have children one day, but she hadn't expected to feel so afraid. She supposed that this would fade with time, as she got used to the idea, and got used to not going back out on tour for quite some time. A lump rose in her throat: of course she would give it up at the drop of a hat for _this,_ but she still loved her job. She put her left hand on the cold edge of the sink in front of her and took a deep breath, feeling sick again. If she was three and a half months gone, then she might have stopped feeling sick by now, but trust her to be a special case. When she closed her eyes, trying to breathe levelly, she felt Dylan's broad hands cover hers: he was standing close behind her, and put one hand on the sink and one hand over her stomach, holding her close to him.

He whispered his excitement into her ear, not caring to hold back a genuine smile. He put his chin on her shoulder and touched his cheek to hers. It was damp with tears. Sam didn't cry. "Are you crying?" he asked in disbelief.

"I've thrown up so many times that my stomach hurts," Sam said quietly, sniffing a little. "Why did it only start when I got home?"

"The subconscious is powerful, your brain probably managed to hold it off that long from the sheer inconvenience of being on tour."

"I'm not sure I'm friends with my subconscious then," Sam retorted. "I think I'd rather have been found out and sent home early — oh, for f-" She was cut off by an intense need to be sick again. It was incredibly undignified, but an appreciated gesture nonetheless, that Dylan stayed in the bathroom with her until it was over, holding her hair back because she hadn't had it tied up. When she sank back to sit cross-legged on the tiled floor, her shoulders sagged and her stomach hurt even more than before. "Whoever brainwashed pregnant women, into believing that morning sickness was a good thing, clearly never experienced it himself."

"Himself?" Dylan raised his eyebrows.

"Don't start, Grumpy, I'm feeling bitter."

"And cold, by the look of you." Sam's teeth were chattering, and goosebumps had risen on her arms. "Go and get some rest, I'll get you a hot water bottle. It might make your stomach hurt less."

Sam stood up gingerly, testing the water and hoping so much that she wasn't going to be sick yet again. "How wonderfully romantic," she added, still holding Dylan's hand as her anchor. When he stood up too, he hugged her carefully, and she kissed his cheek. Guiltily, she ran her tongue around her mouth afterwards. "I need to brush my teeth." Her cheeks turned slightly pink, although she was still mostly pale.

* * *

They lay side by side in bed, Sam under the duvet in her pyjamas and Dylan on top of it, fully-clothed still. She was feeling slightly less terrible now, but the nervous energy radiating off of her husband wasn't helping. Her right arm wasn't tucked under the duvet, allowing her to hold Dylan's hand tightly in the dusky half-light. There was no discreet way to shift her grip so that she had a fingertip pressed to the inside of his wrist, so he noticed at once.

"What are you doing?" he asked, still staring upwards.

"Feeling for your pulse, because I can feel that you're nervous and that's even considering that my only point of contact has been holding your hand. You're like a big ball of static, stop it," she said, as Dylan's blood rushed under his skin. Sam let out a breath through her nose and returned to holding his hand as she had before. "It's Friday night. We've got the weekend to… to think, and then we'll do all the official things on Monday morning. It's our news, until then."

Dylan made a non-committal sound, his mind racing far faster than his pulse. He got up from the bed and set to leave the room, pausing momentarily and turning back to look at Sam. "You need to get some sleep."

He was closing down on her, and she didn't know why. She didn't know how to fix him either. He was shutting down all emotion, disappearing into himself. She only hoped that he was happy. He hadn't actually expressed anything either way — but she knew that he didn't like her being away for so long, and at least that would be remedied by this.

* * *

As the clock ticked towards two in the morning, Dylan paced the living room anxiously, unable to sit still for even a moment's reprieve. He was going to be a father. He had such a sense of duty to be better than his own father, but how different was he? Just as impatient, just as mean, just as reliant on alcohol. It was not a saving grace that his dependence stemmed from OCD — good grief, his OCD! How could he manage to give a baby the care it needed, while fighting intermittent wars with his brain? It did not bear thinking about, that children could be predisposed to mental health conditions as a result of their parentage. If he thought too much about that, he'd probably never sleep again. Sam still didn't know what he went through when things were bad; he didn't want to tell her. Come to think of it, she didn't actually know that things _got_ 'bad.'

Not that he was sleeping right now, of course. Sam needed sleep, not to be disturbed by his tossing and turning while the impossible task of sleep escaped his grasp.

* * *

At first, when Sam woke up, she wasn't sure what had woken her. She lay in the dark for a second, before rolling over to switch on the bedside light, which she had bizarrely forgotten to leave on. This simple movement served a dual purpose: ending one fear (the dark) but replacing it with a multitude of others. The twisting motion required to reach the light switch twinged painfully, tightly in the bottom of her stomach. Sam had only known that she was pregnant for about six hours, but she knew now that something was not right. She lay perfectly still, in the hope that maybe her mind was playing tricks on her. Maybe it wasn't real. Maybe none of this was real. Looking at Dylan's side of the bed, tilting her head minutely, it was empty: it hadn't been touched tonight.

The next cramp in her stomach was so painful that it forced her upright, doubled up with her knees hugged to her chest. She rested her forehead down, crying out in anguished little sobs.

There were a few minutes that followed in which she didn't feel any more pain. Maybe nothing was happening at all. She carefully got up and made her way to the bathroom to rinse her face with cool water. When she went to the toilet, there was bright red blood in the bowl. Rinsing her face had been a waste of time: she cried again, this time with her arms crossed over her stomach.

* * *

From the living room, Dylan heard Sam walking across the landing and into the bathroom. This was unusual: she was a fairly heavy sleeper when she was at home, and rarely woke up in the night of her own accord. He froze where he had been pacing up and down, listening hard. When he heard her cry out, all his worries and intrusive thoughts dropped out his mind; he took the stairs three at a time.

The bathroom door was ajar, but he still tapped on it before pushing it all the way open.

"Sam? Are you - oh." He bit down on the inside of his bottom lip. Sam was sitting on the closed lid of the toilet, and there was no point asking her if she was okay. Bent over he knees, she was crying silently, but so hard that she was shaking. He bobbed down on the floor in front of her at once. "Look at me, Sam."

She lifted her tear-streaked face, her mouth turned down into an expression of heartbreak.

"What's going on? You need to tell me, so I can make it better." He so hoped that his hypothesis on seeing her distress would not be proved correct.

"I'm losing the baby, Dylan."

For half a second, this revelation caused Dylan to lose all grip on reality and every bit of his medical knowledge. He mentally shook himself, having to pretend that this was happening to someone other than his Sam so that he would know what to do. First of all, he cupped her face delicately in his hands and wiped fresh tears away. "No, you don't know that," he said softly. "You're alright, you're going to be just fine."

"Don't patronise me! I'm a doctor the same as you are: I know what it means when you're cramping and bleeding —"

"— a little bit of blood can be completely normal —"

"— do you want to check, and tell me that it's just a little bit of blood?"

Dylan's shoulders dropped. It was getting harder and harder to deal with this situation. "No. I promise I'm not trying to patronise you or tell you that you don't know what you're talking about. I'm sorry if I sound like that - I'm just... Can you stand?"

"M-hm, I think so," Sam said, all tensions evaporated. As she stood up, she hissed in pain, and she reached out for Dylan's hands. He was there at once, like he always was, steady and true. The back of her pyjamas was stained with blood, and she knew it. "I don't want this to happen, Dylan," she mumbled sadly.

He kissed the top her head and hugged her briefly. "Neither do I," he admitted, allowing himself to sound exactly as he felt: broken. He took a breath. "But we have no confirmation yet. You need to get changed, and I will take you to the hospital, and whatever happens, we'll handle it just like we have everything else. Just us. It's going to be alright."

* * *

Late on Saturday afternoon, Dylan came home alone. Sam would be spending the night in hospital, in recovery from and under obs as a result of surgery. There would be no baby Keogh.

He took Dervla out for a walk, sullenly silent. He was glad of seeing no-one that he knew: he didn't doubt that the pregnancy test was already common knowledge, and he couldn't face questions about it. When they returned to the cottage, Dervla circled it, confused.

"She's not here," Dylan said hollowly. "Stop looking for her, you stupid creature!" He hadn't expected the admission of Sam's absence to hurt him so much. "She'll be back tomorrow. Be careful with her." What use was it, issuing empty instructions to a dog?

He packed a few things to take back to the hospital for Sam, and counted them in and out of the bag more times than any sane person would find acceptable. _Any sane person would just put them in the bag and have done with it,_ he thought.

The unshakable intrusive thought was already taking root in his brain though, that this was all his fault. If he'd been a better person, if he hadn't had OCD, if he hadn't used alcohol to quiet his brain. If, if, if. It was a bitter memory that suddenly surfaced, of a French phrase he'd heard over and over again in school: _Avec des si, on mettrait Paris en bouteille._ With ifs, you could put Paris in a bottle. Yes, the ifs would destroy you in the end, but it was the ifs that tormented Dylan every day. His life revolved around ifs.

 _If you stop drinking, the next time won't end in miscarriage._

 _If you unpack this bag, unfold and fold all the clothes and put them back in, then Sam will be alright._

 _If you'd just been a normal husband and gone to bed, slept next to her like a normal night, then none of this would have even happened._

* * *

They had said that they would spend Monday making plans, working out where a baby would fit into their lives and Sam's career in the army. But Monday dawned insultingly brightly for they way they both felt. Dylan phoned the surgery early in the morning and explained his absence in as few words as possible. Sam stayed in bed while he did so; when he returned and saw that tears were leaking from her eyes again, he got back into bed and put a gentle hand on her shoulder which she shrugged away.

"Sam," he said pleadingly. He was always the one shutting people out: he didn't know how to take what he so easily dealt out. Even though it obviously caused her discomfort, she turned so that her back was to him.

Sam wasn't sure, but she thought she might have preferred it if Dylan had taken his usual path of surly grumpiness. She felt so emotionally damaged after their hellish rollercoaster weekend, she just wanted him to be the same as always, to kiss her once because it was the right thing to do and then remind her that she was so much stronger than this. But it was incredibly difficult to watch him struggle exactly the same as she was.


	8. Chapter 8

Holby City Hospital, mid-November 2017

Lily was fed up of being followed by whisperings, rumours, and frankly, lies. As if she didn't already feel confused enough by the chaos that had been the end of her relationship with Iain and now the very real possibility of a research position in Hong Kong, it seemed that everyone had an opinion on the former and liked to offer it around at every opportunity.

This was perhaps an injustice of a sweeping statement, however. Duffy always had a gentle smile and a kind word for her, no matter how many untruths had circled during the day and no matter what stresses a shift had brought. Dr Gardner was also obviously looking out for her. When Lily had all-but fled their conversation about the opportunity in Hong Kong, the consultant had made a point of seeking her out afterwards and ensuring that she hadn't accidentally upset her. Lily had assured her that this was not the case; she'd just been caught off guard by the idea and dealt with it quite badly.

The deadline for applications was the weekend before Christmas, so she had a little while longer to mull it over. At this moment, she quite thought that she would move to Hong Kong tomorrow, given the chance. One more spiteful look from Louise and she'd go this afternoon, application or not. Except… she was not prepared to leave Ethan in the lurch. If she would leave, she would do it properly, work the proper notice period and not be any more of a nuisance than was completely necessary.

As yet, she had not said a word to Ethan about the research post. He had enough on his plate. And since Elle had literally seen Lily run away from the proposition, the only mind upon which it weighed heavily was Lily's. She was fiercely independent and wouldn't be any other way, but she wished that she could just talk it through with somebody. More importantly, she wished she knew how.

* * *

A peculiar absence in the ongoing discourse on Lily and Iain was Sam. She was, of course, a constant topic in the unceasing gossip, but she refused to participate. She had never set out to cause such a fuss in coming back — at least, not for an innocent party such as Lily. It would have been naive of her to to assume that her return wouldn't have ruffled Iain's feathers just a little, but she never thought she'd ruin his chance to be happy with someone who, at least on the surface, appeared to make him very happy.

She would never have matched Lily with Iain, but perhaps 'opposites attract' was the correct principle to apply here? But in the end, their oppositeness had ultimately led to their downfall, Iain's laid-back temperament only stoking Lily's attentive and insecure fire. Still, if Sam hadn't come back to Holby, none of it might ever have happened. But she knew all too well that there was no point in ruminating over what might have been — it was still a verging-on-unreasonable ask to not do so every time she found herself working with Dylan.

It was strange to see him working now: she had thought he might be different, so many years and so much conflict down the line. But so many traits of his that she'd thought wouldn't last… they still existed, and she wasn't sure that this was a good thing.

She observed him closely from her distance. He was in resus and had just discharged his patient to a ward upstairs. Alone in resus, anyone else might have taken a moment's breather before striding straight back out into the thick of it. But Dylan had spread out the remainder of his patient's notes, halfway across the bed in bay three. He seemed intent on reviewing the notes in minute detail. It was strange: surely he would have grown out of this habit once he was out of King's and no longer responsible for a cohort of students barely out of university? Why would he need to obsessively check his __own__ work for imperfections? It just didn't make sense, not that Dylan had ever made perfect sense. Back in his mentoring days, Sam had sometimes taken it upon herself to gently tell him when enough was enough. There was usually some negotiation to be had, and some serious persuasion on her part to convince him that looking over notes again and again would not cause there to be small inaccuracies or blinding mistakes that hadn't been present the first however-many times he had checked.

As he emerged from resus, he kept hold of the notes and stood for a moment, looking slightly lost. She'd seen that expression on his face too many times before. And they hadn't __all__ been her fault, either. Sam walked straight over to him before her confidence wavered.

"Um, are you alright?" she asked.

Dylan looked affronted. The part of his brain that harboured all the pent-up anger, frustration and guilt told him to say something brisk and marginally unpleasant, to push her away. But there were so many other feelings that he also had towards her. There was conflict exploding in every corner of his brain, so his words came out in a rush. "I don't know how you want me to answer that, Samantha."

Sam flinched on hearing her full name without the warmth he used to say it with. Perhaps it had tended to be warm derision, teasing and as playful as he got, but it used to be warm all the same.

Dylan went on, nearly tripping over the words as they tumbled from his mouth. He put on a slightly mocking tone, even though he was talking at a hundred miles an hour. " _ _Oh, I'm excellent, even though it's turned everything upside down that I've tried so hard to keep in order, just by you coming back. Oh and did I forget to mention that I do so regret so much of what happened to us in the end?__ It's not exactly small talk, is it Sam? And neither is the fact that you being back in Holby is quite literally on a path to driving me crazy." For a moment, he looked horrified at how much he had suddenly given away.

This outburst was as good as a slap in the face to Sam. Her mouth fell open. "Dylan, I-"

But he had already turned smartly around and was striding away from her. She wanted to follow him, to find out what on earth he had meant by 'a path to driving me crazy.' She knew him better than that; he would not talk to her now, even if she tried to start a conversation.

* * *

Dylan pushed the staff room door open with such force that it bounced off the wall before slamming shut behind him. Thank goodness, the room was empty. He paced up and down, trying to walk off the adrenaline that he felt. What had he started? His heart was beating hard and fast, pulsing in his ears and hands as much as his chest. He groaned with embarrassment, resting his hands on the back of his head and finally standing still against the lockers.

* * *

When Lily walked towards where Sam stood and saw that the paramedic was standing there, she froze.

Sam nodded in Lily's direction by way of a mild greeting. It was reasonable for Lily to be distant with her, but the registrar still nodded politely in return despite her discomfort. Sam didn't want to make anything worse than it already was (this was why she had nodded rather than start a conversation) which meant that when Lily made out that she was going to continue on her intended path and approach Sam, she was taken by surprise.

However, at that moment, Iain came up behind Sam and asked her if she was going for a drink after work. Sam cringed: Iain hadn't seen Lily at all, but she had, and it was a punch in the gut when she saw Lily's conflicted then hurt expression. She nearly went after the registrar, but was halted by a stream of words through her walkie-talkie, news from control relaying their next shout. Time waited for no-one in here, so the best she'd get in terms of dealing with this would be to remind Iain, while he drove the ambulance, that perhaps he'd like to be a little more mindful in future.

* * *

Lily didn't think to check whether the staff room was empty when she burst through the door. She had this strong façade up of not caring, or of caring about the wrong things. But in actuality, she was weaker than she had ever been. She could not remember ever having been so emotionally unstable as to be moved to tears every time something simple went wrong.

This was precisely why she'd had a five year plan. It had blinkered her, perhaps, but it had also protected her from this very scenario. As a girl, and as a young woman, her parents had always told her to be secure in her career before thinking about love. She had always endeavoured to follow this advice. But she'd thought that she __was__ secure. She'd thought that Iain was the right person to spend her life with.

* * *

Dylan was still standing at the lockers when Lily came in with flushed cheeks and a quivering bottom lip. He hardly dared to breathe as she crossed the room and sank into a space on the sofa. She immediately put her head in her hands; he saw her shoulders quivering and heard her breathing become irregular, punctuated with crying noises and inelegant sniffs. This wasn't something he was meant to see - of all people, Lily was probably closest to him on the scale of not showing emotions in the ED. She would no doubt feel mortified, knowing that she was being watched.

He cleared his throat. He had no idea how to talk about this, but the poor girl would probably benefit from __someone__ just taking some time to listen to her. Why it had to be him… well, what choice did he have?

On hearing Dylan clear his throat, Lily recoiled, momentarily disgusted that she had allowed herself to act in this way in front of another person. The second before she looked up, she had worked out who it was in the room with her, too. Anyone else might have come straight over, full of confidence that they alone possessed the ability to make her feel better (or perhaps that they would have something more interesting to talk about in their next break as a result.) But there was only one person in the whole ED whose sum total of alert to their presence would be a plain cough.

Dylan took a step forward as Lily flicked her head back, sending her dark hair flying over her shoulders. In a matter of moments, she had fastened her hair back into a plait, as if nothing had even happened. Dylan felt as though he'd gone back in time by seven and a half years, and he was watching someone very different process their emotions.

* * *

Catterick Garrison, 28th April 2010

It was the Wednesday following the miscarriage. Dylan had returned to work that morning, at Sam's insistence that she didn't need any more looking after. Her stubbornness had returned, and he had taken this as a signal that she was feeling better. He would have been kidding himself and everyone around him though, to assume that things were back to the way they had been before. There had been a deep rift opened between them, and he couldn't pinpoint why.

It was 8pm, and he was drunk.

In the living room, Sam was crying, quietly, and Dylan was sure that she thought he couldn't hear her. But he'd originally walked out of that room because he couldn't handle the oppressive feeling of upset that hung in the air between them both. And perhaps it was because he was already attuned to her sobs, but even when he could barely see straight, he could still hear her. At least now that he was completely inebriated, he could no longer 'hear' the constant barrage of compulsions that had been on repeat in his brain since Saturday evening. They had made him grumpy with Sam in a way that he had no right to be, given her condition.

When he walked back into the living room, she tossed her hair back over her shoulders and sat up straight as if nothing untoward had happened. Or, she would have sat up straight, had she not winced half-way and thought better of it.

"I'm fine," she said, although this would have been more believable if she hadn't hiccuped at the end of the sentence. She scrubbed under one eye to hide the tears that she was so ashamed of. She looked him up and down, andin that moment he knew that she could smell the alcoholic scent pouring off him. "I'm fine."

* * *

Holby City Hospital, mid-November 2017

"I'm fine," Lily said firmly, even though her eyes were still wet with tears and her cheeks were flushed by crying.

Dylan took a deep breath, now standing opposite her and leaning back against the sink. "Well, that's blatantly not true, is it, Lily? Anyone with half a shred of emotional literacy (which I barely fall into the category of, as I've been informed far too many times) can see that you're deeply upset about something. And I'm going to guess that that 'something' is actually a 'someone,' blonde, five foot five and wearing a new paramedic's uniform."

Lily blinked, looking up at Dylan. Clearly, there was no point in lying to him in an attempt to cover things up. But her impulse was to say __I don't know what you're talking about__ and pretend that this situation wasn't happening. No-one else was in earshot, no-one else had seen her cry. Was it a sure bet that he wouldn't blab to the rest of the department? There was an extremely knowing side to his expression.

"You've cried over her before, you've no great skills in hiding it."

Lily covered her mouth with her hands, thinking about the day that she'd come from the ambulance station to the ED after her disastrous attempt to become the perfect girlfriend. She'd assumed that she hadn't been seen - she __hadn't__ been seen by any of the usual culprits for spreading gossip, which is why she'd thought she had slipped in unnoticed. But she'd walked briskly past Dylan that day, without so much as a 'hello.'

"Look," Dylan said as carefully as he could muster, given that his brain needed both alcohol and some kind of release from the compulsions that hadn't so much crept up on him as much as they'd leapt out in ambush. "In my experience, bottling everything up benefits no-one, least of all yourself." This was putting his experiences lightly, the most dumbed-down summary that he could manage of the turbulent last decade or so.

Lily didn't know what to say. She swiftly ran the tips of her index fingers under her eyes and inspected them for stray make-up. Embarrassingly, her fingertips came away unevenly covered with smoky grey and black. Lily looked down into her lap, embarrassed. A tear rolled out of one eye and dropped down onto her black skirt. When she looked up again, there was a box of tissues held out in front of her; she hadn't heard Dylan leave his frozen position at the sink. "Thanks," she mumbled awkwardly. At least that had broken her silence. "I didn't think that today would turn out like this."

"Well, I can't imagine anyone wakes up in the morning and plans to crumble by lunchtime."

Lily sighed. She rubbed her eyes and blew her nose. Even though it was clear (was it clear?) that Dylan wasn't just going to leave her in her present vulnerability, it still surprised her when he took a seat on the sofa, a foot or so away. He rested his hands on his knees, and Lily saw that he was minutely tapping his fingertips on them. "You've already guessed what - who - all this is about, then?" She thought this was the safest way into the conversation — after all, if Dylan really __had__ been Sam's husband, then she didn't want to start by firing on all cylinders and potentially say something that he would immediately dispute with cold, hard truths.

"It wasn't so much a guess, Lily. It - it's obvious, even without the constant gossiping replays of your break-up outside the pub." That last part was perhaps a little too blunt; Lily dropped her gaze at once. But he was clutching at straws. He __couldn't__ say that he'd seen almost the whole thing, without sounding as though he'd been watching her every move since Sam's return. Which he hadn't been, he'd only been in the wrong place at the wrong time to happen to observe some of the more significant moments.

He paused for a few seconds, overcome by a need to pick up the mugs on the coffee table and wash them with boiling water. Typical really, that a compulsion emerging in front of someone who knew nothing about his OCD, should appear to fit the stereotype of germ-phobia. When, in reality, it was more to do with him and some fabricated action that he knew to be so, but still had to fight against. Intrusive thoughts were not unusual to him, but that didn't make them easier to deal with. He __knew__ that he would never be stupid or desperate enough to drink alcohol from a communal mug in the staff room. But there was still a thought that refused to be silenced, that he'd done exactly that, and that if he didn't wash the mugs with boiling water __right now__ then someone else would do it first and find traces of alcohol in the mug, which of course would be traced back to him.

He started tapping the heel of his right foot on the floor at lightning speed, bouncing his knee up and down. It was a poor substitute for carrying out the compulsion, and __so__ not how OCD worked. You couldn't just start trying to replace present compulsions with past ones. He shouldn't be replacing compulsions or trying to fix himself anyway: he'd started this conversation in a moment of madness, under a sudden mistaken assumption that he might be able to make Lily feel a little better about the situation with Sam. But instead, he had ended up grappling with his own brain.

"It's hypocritical of me to say that you shouldn't let one person get to you like this, but I'm going to say it anyway because it still stands, or at least it ought to still stand. She's just one person, albeit one person whose arrival has upended everything." He was trying to convince himself as much as he was trying to convince Lily.

Lily looked at Dylan with great focus at that moment. While the thoughts that slowly were falling into place were not pleasant, there was a small personal reprieve in that she was concentrating on something other than herself. She had to pull herself up short: the mental health of her colleague was not a 'something' to distract herself with. But, if the alarm bells ringing in her head were to be trusted, then she couldn't carry on and do nothing.

He had said more to her in the last five minutes than perhaps had passed between them in the entire sum total of the time they had been acquainted. Even considering the time that she had fainted and fallen into him in cubicles, and crashed her moped on her way home, they had never talked at length. Not that anybody really talked at length, or at all, with Dylan. It struck her suddenly that he was lonely, which would account for him talking ten to the dozen now, given an apt opportunity. But there was more to it than that, she suspected. There was something not right about the way he'd spoken. His tone was unusual, upset even. And his words were rushed. He didn't quite sound like himself, not just by virtue of his sudden chattiness. And he was tapping things — something which she didn't want to bring up because he was trying so hard to do it discreetly. She wondered, even though Dylan had been careful to assess __her__ wellbeing, whether he himself was alright. She knew about his OCD, insofar as she knew that he had it. Who could forget that awful, terrible day with all the blood on the floor of resus? They had all stood back and done nothing. She was not content to do the same this time.

"Dr Keogh, are you -"

Dylan made a derisive sound. "You can use my first name, you know. I don't charge for it." He bit the inside of his bottom lip, pinching the skin until he almost drew blood. She had sounded so much like she was going to ask if he was okay, and he was just stalling, being deliberately awkward to avoid it, the most difficult question. But there was an element of necessity too: he was technically her superior, but there was no need for her to tread on eggshells and be so formal, not when he had been doing his level best to be kind to her.

Linking her hands in front of her, Lily took a breath and tried again. " _ _Dylan,__ um - are you alright?" She simply didn't know the correct way to ask someone how they were coping, mentally. And she was supposed to be a medical professional. What hope was there for the rest of the population, when even doctors couldn't find the right words? When he stayed silent, Lily wondered if she had blown her one chance, but when she looked at him, she saw that he opened and closed his mouth a couple of times, as though he didn't have a grasp on the words he needed either. "I thought I should ask… because of, you know… You look sort of…"

"Don't say fragile," Dylan replied at once. "This bloody OCD weakens me and makes me useless, but do not tell me that I look fragile, or any synonym of that."

"Okay," Lily conceded, before apologising. "I'm sorry. I think then, that you look like you need a friend." In any case, he looked like he wasn't quite coping in his current situation of not having anyone near him whatsoever.

This took Dylan by surprise. He had expected her to dig her heels in and find another euphemism for _'_ _ _your OCD is showing.'__ "Well," he replied, trying not to be gruff but failing, "so do you. You only allow yourself to look upset, you only look sad, when no-one else can see you." His words hung in the air in front of him: they were both sitting back on the sofa and so defaulted to looking ahead rather than at each other. "I do not count, obviously, because even I noticed that you aren't alright, today."

Lily sat straight up and looked at Dylan with a slight frown. "You count!" she protested quickly. "Of course you count." Was this his mental distress talking, or just the fact that he was isolated from the majority of the ED team? "I suppose that I just couldn't handle things today, and it all went wrong."

"That's only human, though."

"Not for me!" Lily protested.

"Not for me either!" Dylan countered. "Do you think that __I__ 'can handle things,' that I want to be sitting here talking to you while fighting with every ounce of my remaining sanity, trying to stop myself washing those mugs out in case there's whiskey in one of them?!"

There was a devastating silence in the room, as Lily tried to digest what she had heard, and Dylan realised the enormity of what he'd said. He'd lost control too many times today, but with this new cresting wave of anxiety, he lost grip on the last bit of willpower he'd had over the compulsion. The simple act of speaking it aloud, he had hoped would trivialise it and weaken it but instead he'd given it legs, armour and a sword. He didn't feel that he was acting of his own volition when he stood up and seized the mugs from the table. With a wicked head-rush now as well, he blindly headed to the sink and put the mugs down, hard. He ran the hot tap and in no time at all the water was steaming.

Lily, who had stood up a moment after Dylan, was seriously concerned. She supposed that this was a compulsion, something that he felt he had to do, something that wasn't based in fact at all but instead on some strange, warped perception. It was distressing, to see someone so rational and usually so deeply rooted in reality, not even see that what he was about to do would cause him some real harm.

She knew right then that there was a critical gap in her professional development. She didn't know how to fix this situation. There was nothing else for it. To hell with the fact that this morning they had been colleagues who barely communicated at all, she squeezed in front of him and put herself between Dylan and the sink.

He stepped back at once, alarmed both by their sudden proximity and her coming between him and the act he needed to carry out. This was humiliating: he was paralysed by the interruption to his thoughts, and shaking with the effort of not pushing her out of his way. If he did that, there was no knowing what the final outcome would be, although he suspected he wouldn't be employed here anymore.

Lily's heart had sped up in the electricity of the situation. She watched Dylan clench and unclench quivering fists, as though he was fighting an undeniable impulse. He licked his lips and stepped back, wringing his hands.

"It's alright," she said gently, giving up on her initial effort to make eye contact with him when it obviously made him uncomfortable. She supposed that she would feel the same, if she'd been caught up in a situation shrouded in so much stigma. "It's alright."

He opened his mouth to reply, and tell her that this was very much not alright, when the staffroom door opened and interrupted everything. Not looking at the person who had opened the door, or Lily, Dylan hurried from the room at great speed.


	9. Chapter 9

**Thank you for the reviews I've received so far. And thank you to TheBeautifulNerd and theverystuffoflife for your continued support, of the writing kind and otherwise!**

* * *

Holby City Hospital, mid-November 2017

Ethan, who had entered the staffroom in search of a change of scenery, stood open-mouthed as Dylan all but ran from the scene. He looked quizzically at Lily, whose face was written all over with worry. Her eyes were red, as though she had been crying.

"What's going on?" he asked, trying to be the Clinical Lead that he was meant to be. Although at that moment, he was in the mindset of looking out for his friend, rather than managing a situation between colleagues.

Lily was stuck now. She didn't know how honest she could be, without betraying Dylan's trust and without getting them both in trouble for withholding information that doubtless had a large role to play in his continuation as a doctor in the ED. Equally, she didn't want to lie to her best friend, even if he was her boss too. She certainly didn't want to spill the truth on why her eyes were still so red. She squeezed her eyes shut, conscious of how far from here Dylan might have got in the time she'd been still standing here. He wasn't in a state to be by himself, whether he would appreciate her presence in particular or not. "Are you here as Ethan, or as Clinical Lead?" she asked daringly, knowing she was treading a very thin line.

Stressed already, Ethan pursed his lips. "Ethan," he decided, although he'd probably live to regret that decision. "Tell me what's going on, and I won't take it out of this room."

"You promise?"

Ethan let out a breath forcefully. He would definitely live to regret this. He closed the door. "I promise."

Lily pulled her plait over her left shoulder and tugged on the end of it. "You remember, two years ago, when… oh, it's no good, I need to be out there! Dylan's OCD — I don't know, just… I know you're Clinical Lead, but please keep it to yourself for the time being."

Rubbing the back of his neck, Ethan nodded. There wasn't so much to keep to himself; she hadn't really told him anything. "Alright. You're not the only doctor in the hospital though, remember that for me?"

Lily looked at him with a slight frown before grabbing her coat and leaving the room herself, in search of Dylan with no clues as to his whereabouts. Where would she go, if she wanted to get away, if she wanted to hide?

* * *

The Peace Garden was such an obvious choice that she nearly discounted it completely. But she saw him at once, his crisp white shirt standing out against the last stubborn bits of green in the garden. It was cold outside, but for whatever reason, Dylan obviously couldn't feel it, or maybe his mind was so busy with other things that it was easy to ignore.

Dylan turned to check whose gravel-crunching footsteps were approaching him. When he saw that it was Lily, he didn't know exactly how he felt. He didn't immediately want her to go away, but there was burning embarrassment at the forefront of his mind too. Not even Sam had seen him lose it over a compulsion — she had never known that side of him at all, and they had been immeasurably close, once upon a time.

"Did you tell him?" he asked, watching Lily take a seat on the nearest bench and pull her coat around herself.

"I didn't tell him anything that he didn't already know. He didn't need to know what happened in there, Clinical Lead or not."

There was silence again. They were getting good at calm silence, juxtaposed as it was to this situation, which was not calm at all. Dylan sat down next to Lily a few seconds later; the intensity of emotion attached to the compulsion had dissipated and he was left with just the manageable, constant, unpleasant feeling.

"Aren't you cold?" Lily queried, looking at Dylan's rolled-up sleeves.

He shook his head but didn't go any further with an explanation. It would not make sense to an outsider, the strange unpleasant warmth that followed intense mental distress. "Social convention dictates that I ought to thank you for not _dropping me in it,_ as it were, but -"

"- but, I will forgive you, given the circumstances."

Dylan let out an exasperated breath. This was what he had been afraid of. He didn't want every decision concerning him to be made 'all things considered.' This was why he hated his OCD being known, and especially now that Lily knew how far it would go, it would be hard to bite his tongue about this. The stigma around mental health was enough on it own to send anyone into spirals of despair. But he didn't know how to express this without deeply offending Lily, who was clearly doing her best.

At first, he expected her to stay on the track of feeling sorry for him, but she actually steered the conversation in a very different direction.

"I have to apologise to you," she said quietly. "I don't think that I should have gotten in your way like that. I didn't know what to do. I thought you…" It was difficult to describe what she had seen, without resorting to describing him as she would a patient, but she carried on, cautiously. "I thought you were experiencing significant mental distress -"

"- Correct," Dylan cut in.

Lily bit her lip. "I thought you were going to hurt yourself -"

"- Correct, again." His eyes rolled ever so slightly as he said this.

She ran one hand along her plait. "I thought that if I could just _stop_ you, then it would all go away."

"An admirable goal," Dylan replied. "You've no need to say sorry for what you did. I was all set to… to do exactly what you worried I would." He couldn't bring himself to describe it any more exactly than that, for fear of needing to finish what he started. "But -" Was he ready, to speak so openly about this? "It doesn't work like that. You stopping me, it didn't take away the thoughts in my head that were completely out of my control."

"I just don't know enough about it," Lily said. "OCD, mental health, any of it. I know it was all very sudden, and very spur-of-the-moment, but I think I should have been able to do better by you."

Dylan did not know how to respond to that. He ploughed on with what he had wanted to say all along. "While I may seem now as though your actions fixed things, I can assure you quite honestly that at that moment, it made everything so much worse. That's not a criticism of you," he added swiftly, "because there's nothing else you could have done. It's merely an observation that might help you to understand _._ "

Lily raised her eyebrows at him, not sure if he was being serious or not. "Do you want me to understand?"

Dylan leaned forwards, elbows on his knees and hands balled into fists that he rested his chin on. For a moment, he covered his mouth with one hand, as though holding back the words that he knew were coming. "Mm," he hummed quietly. "I think I do."

The Peace Garden had worked its magic, dissolving anxiety and making it many times easier to talk. Lily knew that it was important now to listen. Which was why it infuriated her when her pager started to bleep in her pocket, followed shortly afterwards by Dylan's making its own sound of interruption.

They stood up at the same time. But as Dylan was set to leave, Lily stopped him.

"I know we have to go now, but this isn't finished. I mean to say," she added quickly, "that it's not finished, _if_ you still want to talk."

Dylan nodded very slightly; it was more a gentle inclination of his head than a full nod.

Lily put her hands in her coat pockets. "Then we'll carry on, soon."

* * *

They walked back to the ED without talking; Lily slowed down dramatically just before they got back into the department.

"You are… alright, aren't you?" She was keen not to push him into a situation that might send him over the edge again, not that she had a plan of how to fix things if that was how things were.

"Sterling," he replied shortly. He didn't mean for it to come out harshly, but it sounded rather sharper than he would have liked. "Sorry," he added.

Lily's eyes widened a little, but not noticeably. To her memory, he didn't apologise for being too quick with his words. She had a burning question that she had to ask before she lost her nerve. "Dylan, why did you decide to talk to me? About your OCD, I mean."

His reply was simple, although it took him a few seconds to reach it. "You're the only one who treats me like I'm one of you."

Lily knew at once what he was referring to. She actually felt honoured — of course, she had to be 'the only one' except for Zoe. Everyone else did rather steer clear of him, avoid talking to him, that kind of thing. It wasn't fair, but she knew the feeling.

"Why is that, Lily?"

They were very close to the department now, and she started walking slower still, until she had nearly stopped. She took her coat off and hung it over one arm, ready to drop it as soon as she could before getting into resus. "Because I've never been one of them either."

* * *

While Ethan may have spoken to Lily earlier as her friend, it was with the eye of a Clinical Lead that he took a cursory glance over both Lily and Dylan when they came back into the ED. But there was nothing to suggest anything of what had come before. Lily looked far more herself: measured, with eyes deep brown but clear of any untoward emotion whatsoever. And there was no trace of anything on Dylan's face whatsoever, so Ethan judged him to be normal too.

Working alongside Lily though, it was clear there was more on her mind than just the patient. Where he normally respected her single-mindedness, right now she was thinking of other things, and it showed. She was still thinking about whatever had gone on in the interim between herself and Dylan.

* * *

In the end, the ED and life outside of it got in the way, and it was three days before Lily and Dylan finally found some time where they weren't surrounded by less sympathetic ears. It was about an hour before they were due to start their shifts. Lily was drinking green tea while Dylan favoured a black coffee. There was something strange about him today, although Lily couldn't put her finger on it.

Dylan hoped that Lily would not be able to notice that he was nursing a shocking hangover. He tried hard not to visibly wince when someone directly behind him scraped their chair noisily back from their table.

Lily was trying not to look too hopeful. With what she knew about Dylan, it could take as long as it did before, or longer, to actually get him talking. Neither of them was good at the small talk that other people seemed to find so simple.

"Let's skip the boring pleasantries that no-one really listens to, shall we?" Dylan said astutely.

Lily allowed herself a small smile. "Yes please. I don't want to rush you though, you can say as much or as little as you want."

"For someone who claimed to know nothing about mental health, you're doing quite well at saying all the right things." He didn't doubt for a second that Lily had probably gone home and read up on these sorts of conversations in the time that had passed between their last conversation and this one. But it didn't bother him as much as he thought it might. She may well come out with some mildly clichéd comments but at least she cared enough to try, which was more than everyone else did.

Lily looked down at her cup, holding it with both hands. She took a sip of her drink, then on putting it back down on the table she gently wiped away the residue of her lipstick that stood out boldly on the white plastic.

Dylan's head was pounding, but he persevered. "What you saw, the other day… it was a compulsion. That's the technical term for it at least. I suppose you might have guessed, what with me having Obsessive _Compulsive_ Disorder."

"Stop trying to devalue what you're saying to me," Lily said, looking up and meeting his eye. "Explain it as plainly as you want to, as you need to, because you live with this every day and it can't possibly be easy for you to explain it to another person."

He wanted to apologise for scaring her with the way he'd acted, because there was no denying that there had been genuine fear on her face. He wanted to apologise for letting it happen full stop, because he hadn't wanted to drag anyone into all of this mess. "Essentially, it's _just_ a thought. At the base of it, the whole rotten thing is all thoughts. But they take over, they become the biggest thing in your mind, and you can't escape. The only thing you know is that it might go away, if you do what it says. In that situation, I needed to wash those mugs out. It sounds so simple, but that's it."

Lily noticed that he had strategically omitted the part of the compulsion that he had blurted out to her in the staffroom. The reason _why_ he needed to wash the mugs.

"The longer you put it off and try to convince yourself that you don't have to do it, the stronger it gets, until there's no holding it off. Which… is why I became quite irritable with you. There's a massive amount of irrational anxiety behind it. And that is why I exited the room very quickly. Fight or flight. There was no fight left in me."

Lily was taken aback by how lucidly he described it. She supposed, if he'd experienced it for a long time, he was intimately aware of what it did to him. His articulacy was staggering, although it was shocking to have it laid bare. It looked as thought it was taking its toll on Dylan, saying it all aloud.

Pushing his coffee cup away from him for the time being, he knotted his hands tightly, wringing them as some kind of get-out to all the mounting stress in his brain.

"If this is making you uncomfortable, then you really don't have to do it. You have no obligation to make yourself uncomfortable for me. If you don't want to do this, if you want to stop, then you are free to do so."

He rolled his top lip between his front teeth, hands still intertwined. "I don't want to stop. But that just doesn't make it easier, I'm afraid."

"Okay," Lily replied. "Well, can I say something, then?"

Dylan relaxed his hands and picked up his coffee with one hand, gesturing for her to go ahead with the other.

"I want to thank you for taking the time, the other day, to ask me if I was okay. I know you're the very last person to get involved in anything emotional, but I very much appreciate that you were there. It was quite… grounding, to not be by myself at that moment."

"You're not wrong that I don't do that kind of thing. I'm the first to turn and run from any difficult situation. But I felt as though I should help a little." He wasn't sure how to describe the sense of duty that he had felt, to pick up the pieces when he knew that Sam was causing havoc for more than just him. "I know what it's like to be hurt by Sam." He watched as Lily's cheeks began to colour, and he knew he'd touched a nerve. But he wouldn't go back on what he'd said. It was true.

"I don't know that I was hurt by Sam, not directly at least," Lily said before she knew what she was doing and had time to censor herself. She didn't _make me_ ruin things. She just turned everything upside down, and I clearly didn't cope with that very well. It was my doing, in the end, not hers. Not really." She wondered why it was so easy to pour out her troubles to Dylan. Eventually, she concluded that she was like a shaken champagne bottle, exploding at last under intense pressure and a sudden opportunity for release.

"Nonetheless, I thought that while no-one else was willing to give you the time of day -"

"- not exactly a new experience for me," Lily added.

"Nor me."

There was a pause, in which Lily felt a growing bond of friendship blossoming. She couldn't help the corners of her mouth turning up just a little. Although she had always had Ethan's friendship, now he was in charge she saw him far less. Building this bridge, however slight it may be, made her feel a little less alone.

"When we talked in the staffroom," she said meaningfully, "you said that having OCD made you useless."

"Yes." Dylan didn't offer any further explanation, because he didn't have any.

"It doesn't, though. You're not useless. Even _with_ Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, you still run rings rings around people. You're a good doctor, and you're a good person, even though I don't think you always realise it. You are not useless."

* * *

 **Please leave me a review if you can, let me know what you think :)**


	10. Chapter 10

Calais, August 2017

Dylan couldn't sleep. This time, however, his sleeplessness had little to do with his OCD, which had been fairly quiet of late, and everything to do with his moral compass. A moral compass, which after what he had seen tonight was spinning wildly out of control.

He knew that he would not easily forget the screams he had heard not the trauma he had witnessed. The crunching metal of the container full of refugees — the sound was clear in his mind as if she still stood beneath it. Although he was in a sleeping bag, he shivered violently as another mental image surfaced and refused to budge. Mariam's glassy eyes as her life ebbed away. She had only wanted the best for her little brother, and look where it had got her. Dylan also had Sanosi's traumatised expression etched in his brain. 3000 miles from home, that little boy was now totally alone in the world.

It was disconcerting to have so many thoughts fighting for front and centre in his mind.

He stared at the ceiling of the tiny room he had shared with David throughout this trip. The nurse was bundled up in many layers of clothing and a sleeping bag, so that only his face showed. He had been fast asleep for hours, following sadness-fuelled silence during which neither of them had spoken. Neither had been able. There was nothing to say. David snored gently, less an intrusive sound and more a slight snuffle, a reminder that Dylan was not alone. David had such a skill in always making Dylan feel less alone, no matter what scenario they found themselves in. They had an almost unbreakable bond, after Dylan's successful effort not to be the consultant who let a nurse be sectioned in his resus, and his subsequent explanation that he too understood losing control of one's brain.

 _ _Almost__ unbreakable.

'Almost' because kind-hearted, just, morally sound David would never speak to Dylan again after tomorrow. Dylan's mind was made up: there may have been several more official days of __Cal's Mercy Mission__ , but tomorrow, he would set off for the UK, with Sanosi. He had three reasons for leaving so soon.

1\. The longer he stayed, the more chance there was of the others finding out, and they would never in a million years let him do it.

2\. If he waited until the scheduled return date, the others would become implicated in the smuggling, whether they were aware of his intentions or not. While he was not considering his own career at this point, he would not allow his actions to impact on others.

3\. With every passing hour, his manic brain was trying to war with itself. A constant stream of pros and cons was all he could hear in his mind. The longer he stayed on French soil, weighing up his decision, the weaker his conviction would become.

But he had to do this. He had been the weak link, the final contributing factor that had led to Sanosi being alone in the first place. Getting him into the UK safely might begin to silence the internal criticism that Dylan was at the mercy of.

 _ _You know what would help you sleep.__

The thought was comedically intrusive, so clear that it may as well have been spoken by the metaphorical devil on his shoulder. Dylan had sincerely hoped that this thought might never come. Because he __did__ know exactly what would 'help' him, what would silence the internal monologue: the small bottle of very strong French alcohol, buried inside three pairs of socks and covered by spare t-shirts in the bottom of his rucksack. His French was not what it once was (especially with a brain focusing on everything except the language of the country he was currently in) but it did not tale a linguist to read percentages.

He curled up in his sleeping bag, facing the wall and trying to tell the thought __no__.

* * *

There was another thought too. It was a niggling doubt at first, crawling into his brain and taking root. It grew until it took up nearly all of his empty space.

It had been a while, but the OCD was definitely coming back.

* * *

The alcohol was strong, and it burned, but it didn't make his eyes water as much as the entire bottle of mouthwash he used after brushing his teeth three times. When he got back to his sleeping bag, his entire mouth stung.

* * *

Holby City Hospital, December 2017

The flourishing friendship between Dylan and Lily was unconventional but somehow exactly what they each needed. Sometimes a friendly face was just enough to offset everything happening around the usual stress of a shift.

And sometimes, it wasn't.

One morning, Lily asked him a question which threw him entirely. "Are you alright?" she said when he walked into the staffroom. She was tying up her hair and hanging her stethoscope around her neck.

Dylan, who had entered the room to deposit his belongings in his locker, was mildly hungover and had not expected such a difficult question first thing in the morning, did not say anything at first. He took off his jacket, put it into his locker and stood, hands on hips, looking at Lily. "I don't know how to answer that question." How could he possibly explain that he was still hungover from off-the-scale drinking __the night before last?__ And this without the fact that she seemed to honestly care whether he was mentally stable today. This was of course the motivation behind her question, not his alcoholism, which she, thank god, did not know about.

Lily almost smiled. "Are you deliberately avoiding my question, or just being typically abrasive?"

If he'd been different, he might have smiled back. If Zoe had been the one to say that, he would have had a smart-mouthed comeback at the ready. "Neither," he replied. "I really do not know how to answer that question, when it has been asked by someone who genuinely cares about my response. It's been a long time."

There was something so __real__ about the way she had asked him how he was feeling. It was a long way removed from the frequent 'alright?' that was carelessly tossed around like confetti by way of normal greeting in the ED. The last person to ask him, and mean it, had been Zoe, eighteen months ago. And before that, Sam.

"Ah," Lily said, embarrassment glowing on her cheeks.

She considered him for a moment. He didn't look particularly alright, despite his obvious efforts to do so. Sleeves rolled perfectly, exactly as always, shirt tucked in precisely, hair neat and no different to any other day. But although he stood with hands on hips, as only he could, he didn't seem himself. He didn't stand so tall, he squinted against the bright fluorescent lights and if his hands hadn't been planted squarely on his hips, she was sure they would have been visibly unsteady. If he had been somebody else, she might have wondered if he was hungover. But she'd never seen Dylan go into the pub, much less order a drink. And more to the point, he smelled of mouthwash, not alcohol.

"If you're not okay, you shouldn't be in work," she said simply, referring to the statistically far more likely possibility that it was not a good OCD-day.

Dylan mentally bit his tongue, wanting to say that it must be nice to be a carefree registrar at liberty to take 'sick' days on a whim. He knew that if he had been stone cold sober, the inclination to say that would have never surfaced, held back by the knowledge that snapping at Lily at the present time would be vastly unfair. Drunk Dylan was far more facetious and mean than sober Dylan. It might have been nice not to know the difference with so little effort. "I am fit to work," he said, without further elaboration.

Lily seized her chance, knowing that they were alone and unlikely to be disturbed. "You don't have to answer this, and I won't be offended if you choose not to. But that… compulsion, last week… Why did you have to wash whiskey from the mugs? Obviously there was no way there would be anything like that in them. This is going to sound so crass, I'm sorry, I just don't know a better way to put it — is it an OCD thing, to believe things that aren't true?"

He should have expected her to ask that at some point. All he had to do was answer the question well-enough to disguise the truth. At least, to disguise the whole truth. Because there were parts that she __could__ know, that weren't so terrible that he'd rather keep them locked away. "Um. It is, and it isn't. There… tends to be an __element__ of truth, which the OCD then gets hold of and twists beyond all recognition."

She knew, or thought she knew, that he was holding something back. Lily decided not to push her luck.

"I realise that I sound as though I'm talking in riddles, but the rest of the answer… that's one thing that I am not comfortable to share." He saw an intricate change in Lily's face, and felt a pang of guilt. "It's not personal. It's not because I don't like you."

Hearing him admit that he didn't dislike her felt as though she had won the lottery. Lily stood up from where she had been sitting and pushed up her sleeves, ready to get to work. "No, I understand that. As long you're alright."

"Just fine, I'm sure. And you?"

There was more than an intricate change in Lily's face this time. "Yes, excellent," she said, with very little expression to match her positive affirmation.

This was such a patent lie, but very telling. Even Dylan, with all his lacking emotional wisdom, could see that she was still not back to normal. The situation with Sam, while perhaps not getting worse, obviously wasn't getting better, either. And the constant grating had Lily still extremely upset. She seemed to be right on the edge; one little thing could tip her back to tears.

* * *

Sam stood outside the ED later that morning, holding two cups of coffee. Steam billowed out of the small hole in each lid, floating in the crisp wintry air. She rolled her eyes to nobody in particular: Iain had said he would be 'two minutes', over five minutes ago. She heard the automatic doors slide open, and expected to see his green uniform emerge, but instead her eyes fell on Dylan coming out of the department. His shirt, although tucked in, was creased messily. Her first assumption was that he'd been in resus, moving around a lot, et cetera. But as he walked towards her, she got a better look at him. It was as though his shirt had never been ironed at all.

Wait, he was walking towards __her?__

"You always were about as subtle as a philharmonic orchestra," he said abruptly, standing a few feet from her and putting his hands on his hips, frowning.

"Excuse me?" Sam replied, taking half a step back. "Good morning, Dylan," she added, pointedly. It was petty and meaningless, but if he was going to be uncivil, then so was she.

Dylan was having none of it; he did not fall for the bait. "Do you not see what you've done, barrelling back in here as though nothing has changed?!"

"I don't think that's fair," she countered. "I'm smarter than you give me credit for -"

"Don't you think I know that?" Dylan regretted these words the second they had escaped his lips. He wished he could take them back. Of course he knew that Sam was incredibly intelligent: for goodness' sake, it was part of what had made him fall in love with her, and what made it so damned difficult to forget her. "Why have you done this, burst back into Holby like we're still in 2009?" It was a low blow, he knew, to suggest that the last time they were on good terms was six years previously. "You're like a bull in a china shop, re-patching whatever you've got with Iain, which has totally __destroyed__ Lily! Why couldn't you leave us -" He pulled himself up smartly. "Why couldn't you leave her out of this?"

Sam bristled at the accusation that she was the only one at fault in whatever dysfunctional relationship there was left between them. She could have quite easily crushed one or both of the coffee cups she was holding. "I'm only coarse and unrefined because you made me that way." He face was twisted into an expression of disgust. "That was the only way I could get through to you, so I'm sorry if that's had a lasting impact on the way I am now!"

He sighed, letting out a long breath in an attempt to drag his temper back under control. He didn't want to accept that all of this was his fault. "You are infuriating, Sam. Completely, utterly, unbelievable."

His words were sharp, disjointed. Sam realised at that moment that Dylan smelled strongly of alcohol. He had clearly taken steps to mask it, but there was no hiding it from someone who knew him as well as she did. Or, once did. Still, the scent of someone disguising alcohol with mouthwash was not an easy thing to forget. She wanted to shout and scream, be furious with him for being so weak as to fall back on that spineless coping strategy, and for being so stupid as to come to work still suffering its ill effects. At that moment, she felt as though they were back in the house in Oxford, that nothing had moved on since then. And how far had they moved on, if they had stumbled back into this position of Dylan's alcoholism being laid bare in front of her, all over again? Her first thought was that he was on duty — if anyone found out that he was hungover, or potentially still drunk, because she had a rough idea of how much he could put away, he could be reported. It was a safe bet that he didn't have a sparkling record; something like this could get him struck off. While she had so many complicated feelings about him, she didn't want him to lose the biggest identifying part of him. Sure, he was brisk, sometimes a little mean, obsessive and unceremoniously sarcastic, but he didn't deserve to lose his identity.

The only way to save him, and she had an incredible, unexplainable sense of duty to do so, was to somehow convince Ethan to give Dylan leave, and ensure that this was recorded as vaguely as possible.

* * *

She knocked on the door of Ethan's office, having thrust the coffees into Iain's care the split-second he returned to the ambulance. There wasn't much time: if there was another call-out, she'd have to abandon this conversation altogether, which considering Dylan's current state, could spell disaster. It was a relief when Ethan gestured for her to come in straight away. There was a line in his forehead from frowning too much. Just what the department needed, a stressed-out Clinical Lead.

Ethan felt immediately guilty for being brisk with Sam. Nothing going on inside the hospital was her fault, after all. But her request certainly wouldn't make things any easier.

"You need to put Dylan on leave. Ill-health, unfit to work, whatever you want to call it, he can't be here."

"Sam, I'm sure you mean well, but I can't just sign off a consultant, on someone else's authority -" He stopped, wilting under Sam's glare and single raised eyebrow. "If he's not ill, I can't do anything."

Sam's glare turned steely. "It's staring you right in the face, if only you'd step out of your office to see it! He reeks of whiskey, Ethan. Have you ever known him, even once, to set foot into the pub out there? Have you even seen him drink?"

There was an awful silence. It dawned on Ethan what she was getting at. And if she was telling the truth, he was in way over his head. Since walking in on the staff room incident between Lily and Dylan, he had tried to keep an eye on Dylan's behaviour. While he had tried to see anything that matched Lily's assessment of an OCD relapse, he certainly hadn't noticed anything to suggest excessive drinking instead.

"You just don't understand," she said firmly, hoping that she'd be able to keep a lid on her feelings if Ethan wouldn't listen to her.

"And I suppose you do?" Ethan didn't want to believe that he had missed something so important in one of his team. He didn't want to be the Clinical Lead that failed a consultant this badly. It was beside the point, but he barely wanted to be Clinical Lead at all.

"Yes!" Sam said, raising her voice a little more than she ought to have done. "I was __married to him,__ and I still-" She faltered, long enough to regroup and control what she was saying, veto her unconscious impulse. "I still care enough about him to spot that he's falling, fast. I've seen him spiral down into alcoholism before. I know what I'm looking for." It was a careful, neat omission, that the last time he had spiralled down, she hadn't actually seen him fall. She'd been on tour, and had returned to find a drunken nightmare in place of the husband she loved so much. Maybe she knew what to look for __now,__ but only because last time, she had simply walked away when she couldn't fix him. "Alarm bells are ringing, and you're just not listening."

In the end, Ethan, now sinking under the added pressure of being one consultant down, agreed that Dylan would be given three weeks of compassionate leave. This was the easiest way to get him out of the department without questions from upstairs. Perhaps unwisely, he wasn't sure, he allowed Sam to take over. She couldn't possibly do a worse job than anyone else; she obviously knew him better than most people ever would, despite their estrangement.

But Ethan was acting under the assumption that Sam knew about the OCD. It didn't occur to him that she would be oblivious to it; having been married to Dylan and having lived in close quarters with him, how could she possibly not have known?

* * *

Alone in his office again, Ethan opened his email inbox with baited breath. The now-normal stream of journalists littered his computer screen, unopened and remaining so. One email which would not stay untouched, however, had automatically been moved to the top of his inbox, marked with a little red flag and a subject line of 'URGENT: Rage in Resus'.

* * *

Sam found Dylan quickly, knowing she was on borrowed time now before another call-out came through.

"Dylan," she said desperately. She didn't want to embarrass him, but she wasn't sure that he would listen to her.

He glowered at her. "What?"

There was no denying it: there was alcohol on his breath. Although his tone had been cutting, Sam stayed strong. She returned him a glare. "You need to go home," she said steadfastly.

He smirked. "Who put you in charge?" He rolled his eyes. "In case it's escaped your notice, this place is bursting at the seams. I have to stay."

"No, you really do not," Sam said. She pulled him well out of earshot of anyone nearby, and lowered her voice. "Not when the mouthwash trick isn't working anymore."

Dylan's face fell, his cheeks colouring. "How many people have you told?" His tone was clipped, half-disguising deep hurt. To be rumbled, in public, by Sam, who simultaneously knew so much and so little, was damning.

"None," Sam replied quickly. "I'm not that much of a monster. Well, only Ethan, to convince him to sign you off for a while. Three weeks. Sober yourself up, Dylan; this place deserves your best, and this isn't it."

Her words rang in his ears as he returned to the staff room to collect his belongings. Had she really paid him a compliment, cloaked in condemnation?

It didn't improve his day, when he realised that Lily had spotted him leaving the department. This wasn't what he needed, to have to finally explain himself to her.

"Where are you going?" she asked warily, eyeing him up as he hurried towards the doors.

At first, Dylan kept walking, trying to just get away. He wasn't in the mood for idle chatter. But he could hear Lily's footsteps just behind him, so the best he could do was lead her outside so that no-one would hear their conversation, which he aimed to keep as brief as possible.

"Dylan, what's going on?" she persisted, looking worried as he finally came to a stop just outside the doors. She folded her arms across her chest: it was icily cold without any protection from the elements. The sky was steely grey, the weather forecast threatening sleet or perhaps even snow later that afternoon.

He knew full well that he was being unfair, that his frustration with Sam and himself was morphing into unjust impatience with Lily. "I'm going home. Not of my own volition, but because of what I've done to myself."

She looked appalled. Her immediate assumption was that Ethan had stepped in and drawn the line at Dylan's increasingly obsessive behaviour, something which lit a fire in her and prepared her to go and fight Dylan's case at once.

"Stop looking at me like that," Dylan spat. "I'm an alcoholic, Lily, not a charity case."

He walked away, leaving Lily wide-eyed and open-mouthed in the cold.

* * *

The pressure on Ethan to solve the mystery of Rage in Resus was building. The angry-looking email had turned out to be exactly that: Jac Naylor venting fury at the hospital being dragged through the mud. It was true that the media furore around the Emergency Department's day-to-day troubles was not dying down at all. In fact, it seemed to be intensifying.

Ethan pinched the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes shut for a second. He didn't want to spend any more time examining that website, and reading someone's very clear criticism of him. But reading it was the only way to find out whose words were poisoning the department with each added blog entry. He opened it, hardly daring to look. His shoulders sagged when he saw that there was another entry at the top of the page. Sitting back in his chair and sighing, he started to scroll, reading the blog as fast as possible to avoid prolonging the pain. Like ripping off a plaster, he sped through the entry to try and look for identifying details.

In a moment of exhausted madness, he wondered if it might have been written by Lily. The observation was needle-sharp. Eloquent description of life in the hectic ED was effortlessly interwoven with a piercing attack on how things were run. He stopped this thought in its tracks: she wouldn't do this to him. She couldn't. She was too intrinsically good to attack him, or the department, like this. But he couldn't shake the thought. The only way to settle his mind for sure would be to check all the cases she'd been involved in, since the blog first went live, to see whether anything else matched up. He hated himself for suspecting her, but could not help himself from carrying on.

It was with great guilt that he began to check her recent work, cross-referencing it with the blog entries.

Worse though, was later in the shift, when she came to his door, checking if he was okay, as she often did, and he found himself being cold and distant with her because he just couldn't be sure. It wasn't until she'd gone, and he'd read two more cases, that he realised he never should have doubted his initial judgement.

Of course, Lily had nothing to do with Rage in Resus.


	11. Chapter 11

**I probably won't post another chapter for a little while, but I hope you enjoy this one!**

* * *

King's College Hospital, March 2007

Sam knew, on hearing hesitant footsteps, that Dylan had followed her. Part of her thought that he bloody ought to have done, because he'd been way out of line and had upset her deeply. The other part of her was still too angry to hold a conversation with him, and wished he'd just stay away - if only because she'd hoped the one place she might be able to avoid him would be the female staff toilets. But it was definitely Dylan, ignoring the outline of a woman on the door, because she would recognise that sound anywhere. A breath in, a reconsideration of whatever he was going to say, and a frustrated sigh. Sam rolled her eyes, which freed a few more tears. For goodness' sake, what happened to her not being one to cry? How did Dylan have this much of an impact on her, to change one of her defining characteristics?

Dylan hesitated, rocking back and forth on his feet, somewhere between thought and present. He tapped lightly on the only locked cubicle door.

"Sam? I know you're in there," he said emptily. "Will you open the door?"

"No." Her reply was brief, and cut him to the quick.

She was sitting on the closed lid of the toilet, with her knees tucked up to her chest so that her feet could not be seen from outside. To anyone else on the planet, this would have been an immediate signal that she didn't want to talk. But Dylan being Dylan, clearly couldn't read this signal, which wound her up even more. She saw his smart shoes inch closer to the door. Knowing that she would have to talk to him in some capacity, she put up a wall of defence. Formality.

"Dr Keogh, with all due respect, this is the ladies' toilets and I want you to leave." Her resolve was unwavering; she could compartmentalise enough to sound strong when she didn't really feel it. Out of Dylan's sight, her eyes were red and the fabric of her scrub top was creased around the bottom from being clenched in unhappy fists.

There was a very good reason why she couldn't open the door. Not looking at him, it was easier to tell him to go away, but if she caught sight of his reaction to her flat dismissal of him, it would near break her heart. More than he already had, with his ill-thought-out words.

Dylan was hurt by her distancing formality, but he probably deserved it. He put one hand on the closed door in front of him: the closest he would get to her. "Samantha." He used her full name because he knew it would get her attention. No-one else used it, he didn't even use it if other people were within earshot. But it was his safest choice at present: __Sam__ was too informal and she needed to know that he meant what he was about to say, and __Dr Nicholls__ would push her well away. "I won't stay, but I need you to know that I am so sorry for upsetting you. I shouldn't have said what I did. Of course you're important to me - god, I wouldn't be standing here if I thought you were any less than that. You've changed me, Samantha, and I hate to think that I've made you lock yourself in a toilet, of all things. I'm sorry," he reiterated. There was silence.

Sam's impulse was to tell him to go away, with a short, sharp, four-letter word. But her placement was worth more to her than a moment's anguish that would ultimately be regretted. Not to mention the questions that would be asked of her record in the army, if a placement abruptly ended due to misconduct. Although, she considered, it wouldn't be the first time she had demonstrated an explicit grasp of the English language in Dylan's presence. But exchanging that vocabulary with reckless abandon, powered by anger, was not the same, and she knew it. She stayed quiet, although still silently cross with him.

Dylan's shoes moved back from the door, and Sam's heart dropped a little. There was more than a small part of her that wanted to unlock the door, tell him that that was the nicest thing she'd ever heard him say, hug him briefly, and then apologise in jest for making him be so nice against his will. But she still felt prickly and unhappy, which was far more significant right now than any feelings she might have had otherwise.

"Sam," he said, starting very gently. "I'll be in my office, if you would like to discuss changing mentors." It killed him to say it, to know that he had likely blown everything, in one throwaway comment that he should never have vocalised at all.

* * *

He stayed in his office a long time, until he was almost sure that Sam wouldn't come. It wasn't impossible that she might have walked out of the hospital, still offended and hurt, to terminate her placement by formal letters and emails.

He knew her rota for the week: in twenty minutes her shift would have officially ended and then he would have to give up on waiting for her. He tapped on the face of his watch in time with the seconds as they ticked onwards.

With five minutes to go until the end of Sam's shift, she burst into the office unexpectedly, a whirlwind in F1 scrubs splattered with vomit. He raised his eyebrows and opened his mouth to pass comment on her appearance, all prior conflict forgotten, but she raised one finger sternly.

"Not one word, Dylan," she said, gesturing to the vomit down her front. "It's not mine. You're finished now, aren't you? Stupid question, I __know__ you're finished now. I'm going to change, and by the time I have, I'll have sorted through all of… this and made up my mind. I'll meet you on the corner in twenty minutes?"

Dylan hardly dared believe it, but it sounded as though she might have forgiven him already. It was just like her to wade right back into the thick of the department to clear her head, or rather, to fill it with other things. And where she'd been so hurt as to barely string a sentence together earlier, she now wouldn't let him get a word in edgeways. This had to be a good sign.

Still, the compulsion to check multiple times that he'd switched off his computer properly, couldn't hurt.

* * *

 _ _Meet you on the corner__ was a staple of their shared language now. Sam had started it, of course, meaning that they would meet far enough away from the hospital so as not to arouse suspicion, but somewhere that they both knew the other would be.

Dylan wasn't surprised to be the first one there tonight. It did start to make him worry, however, when Sam didn't turn up at the time she'd stated. His gaze flitted about, looking for something that his brain could settle on, get the tapping out of the way. But there was nothing. Maybe she wasn't coming. Maybe he'd imagined the whole scene in his office and Sam was still furious with him. Maybe -

But there she was, striding out along the pavement in blue jeans, red converse and a leather jacket. He couldn't help himself smiling at her, despite everything that had come before this moment. As she got closer, it became apparent that her delay had something to do with her hair being only half-dry.

"How do you do that?" he said. "How do you manage to take a complete shower and still be ready so quickly?" He neglected to add __and still look so beautiful__ because he wasn't sure whether they were on good terms, or any terms at all.

Sam shrugged. "I wasn't going to walk home wearing Eau de vomit." She pulled her damp hair over the shoulder closest to Dylan, like a barrier between them.

Why did they have to be like this? Avoiding the elephant in the room as though there was none at all. As if there was no awkwardness whatsoever. Sam pushed her mind firmly away from the afternoon because it started a dull ache of sadness in the back of her throat.

* * *

As they walked along, it was obvious that the elephant in the room could be ignored no longer. The pair of them were silent, walking on eggshells. She knew that he was tapping the outside of his thigh, and knew that the time for grumpy silence was over.

"Okay?" Sam said brightly, although she didn't smile. She couldn't work Dylan out sometimes. Some of his 'quirks' were too quirky, unreadable.

"Okay?" Dylan's reply was as much a question as hers had been. He stopped as she had, and looked into her eyes as if they would tell him what he needed to know. "What about…" While he was very apologetic for his actions this afternoon, it was still not easy to admit exactly what he had done.

"About your barbed and completely unnecessary comments this afternoon, that __made me cry?__ " she challenged pointedly.

Dylan looked at the floor. "Yes. That."

"You really upset me, Dylan." Sam wouldn't let this go, she had to make him see this the way she had.

"I realise that, and I really am sorry." He wished they could start walking again so that his brain wouldn't be entirely trapped in this horrible moment.

"I don't want you to think," Sam said, "that I was upset because of __where__ you did what you did. I don't care about the others, I don't even think I'm bothered these days if they find out about us. Your words hurt because I believed that they were true. I've grown to trust your word, Dylan, so to hear __those words__ from you, I thought that you meant it."

Dylan shook his head, wishing that by doing so he could shake the whole thing from his mind. This was what he did, he created messy situations where there were none, and hurt the people closest to him. "I wish I could take the words back." He couldn't say he was sorry yet again. It would lose all meaning.

But there was another side to Sam's effort, too. She took a step closer to Dylan and reached out her hand to cautiously take his. She waited for him to look up at her in confusion, to know that he was concentrating completely on her (as opposed to whatever else seemed to be occupying his brain of late, which seemed to be an awful lot.) "I know," she said quietly. "Thank you." She squeezed his hand, finally allowing the tension between them to release as she dropped it.

"Why on earth are you thanking me? I made you cry, and I'm sure it's not the first time. You shouldn't be thanking me for anything."

"Oh, be quiet," Sam said, before kissing his cheek lightly. "I'm thanking you for realising that you were wrong, and being man enough to apologise. You haven't always done that."

* * *

Holby City Hospital, December 2017

Lily had heard rumblings all day that Jac Naylor was on the warpath. What business it was of hers that the ED's reputation was freefalling at the hands of the anonymous blogger, Lily did not know. She hadn't see Ethan all day; she guessed that he had been trying to extinguish and untangle the growing drama. But if the scene she could see through his office door was anything to go by, he had had little success. She watched as he sighed (or so she guessed, being unable to hear him) and put his elbows down on the desk, covering his mouth with his hands.

She was no Sherlock Holmes, but she'd do anything to work out who was doing this to him and put a stop to it.

Lily looked at her watch and felt a small rush of relief. It was twenty past seven; there were only ten minutes leftof her shift. There had come a small lull in admissions, so she would not be missed if she took this time to do a little paperwork before heading home. She could have laughed, sitting in the staffroom with far more than ten minutes of paperwork, thinking of people she had lived with at university and what they would think of her still being in work at half past seven on a Friday night. While she wanted to finish this, she was tired, and it could wait. She put the notes away (marked with sticky notes where there remained work to do) and collected her things from her locker. She almost forgot to put away her stethoscope, tiredness and the act of winding a scarf warmly under her coat combining to make it a near-impossible thing to remember. Clumsily, she caught the stethoscope on her glasses as she pulled it free of her neck; she hadn't remembered to re-order her contact lenses on time, so for the first time in a long time, she had worked in glasses today.

* * *

Drawn out of his own head at long last, Ethan looked up with a start when he heard someone knocking lightly on his door. He half-expected it to be Jac Naylor running on wrath to break down his door, so it was a relief to see Lily standing there, all set to go out into the cold save for the fact that her coat was unbuttoned. Having spent so long staring at his computer screen, it took a moment to adjust his eyes and focus on her properly. He blinked a few times, waiting for his eyes to function.

"You're not in a good place, are you?" Lily asked delicately, tactfully looking away from the stack of disposable coffee cups in the waste paper bin but instead seeing the unease on his face.

Ethan shifted in his seat. "Not the best, no." In this case, there was no point lying. There was nothing to lie for: Lily knew anyway.

"Shall I leave you to it?" She took a step back and seemed ready to do exactly as she said, but Ethan stopped her.

"No, please don't." He liked her company far more than he cared to admit.

There was no point beating about the bush. If being Clinical Lead had taught Ethan anything (and really it had brought him little) it was how to be direct.

"Lily, are you free this evening?" he asked.

All of Lily's previous tiredness dissipated. Her eyes widened a little, not sure if she'd really heard him correctly or her ED-mangled brain was now making things up that she wanted to hear. She cleared her throat, stalling as she tried her best to visualise the rota. Her heart was fluttering and her mind was annoyingly struck completely blank. "Um, yes," she said, having decided that either she was not due in work tomorrow or that she would manage on little sleep in order to spend whatever time with Ethan that he offered.

"I know it's late, but I just need to wind down a little, and I know that I'm better off with you than by myself." He might have started directly, but he was still Ethan underneath all that armour of Clinical Lead. "Can we… can we go for dinner?"

Lily smiled. "I know just the place."

* * *

Dinner was __perfect.__ It also brought Lily untold hilarity, when she had insisted on paying her share. Just because Ethan was now on not just a consultant's salary, but a Clinical Lead's one, did not mean that he was allowed to pay her way. Equally, it was 2017, and she was entitled as a woman and a feminist to be independent. Nonetheless, it had made her feel something familiarly lovely to know that he wanted to do so, and only backed down when she argued her case fiercely.

Dinner had been perfect, but sitting in a secluded corner of the bar, splitting a bottle of wine, was more so. Lily felt the tension of the week slip away as the wine snaked around her senses. It was so much easier to talk with a tongue loosened by alcohol. The ambient noise of bar, other people's conversations and the clinking of glasses all melted into one sound, but the only sound that mattered was Ethan's beautifully English voice, finally putting into words much of what he'd kept bottled up.

It wasn't unexpected that the conversation moved to Rage in Resus. It was playing heavily on Ethan's mind, and the minds of others too. At least, Lily hoped that other people were concerned about it too. She was worried because she could see it robbing Ethan of that slight confidence that he had had on being awarded the position of Clinical Lead.

"I just want to know who it is!" Ethan exclaimed, putting his glass down forcefully, then reconsidering his action and clasping his hands close to him. "I'm sorry," he said quietly.

"No, by all means," Lily said, in what she hoped was a gentle rather than patronising tone. "I think your reaction is perfectly justified. I just want to be able to help you, and tell you who's writing all those awful things."

"You know the most awful thing though?" Ethan asked, his eyebrows furrowing with stress. "All the worst parts, they're completely true. If it was all lies, then it would be easier to say that it doesn't bother me. But whoever it is, they're right, I'm not much of a Clinical Lead and the department is crumbling."

"No," Lily said firmly. She reached a hand out to cover Ethan's wrung hands. "The department is heading into winter. We all knew this year was going to be difficult, but it's not your fault, or anyone else's. That's just typical winter." She wanted to find a way to tell him that everyone made mistakes, without sounding like a cliché. He was a brand new Clinical Lead, bound not to be perfect as he found his way. Zoe had had years more experience than him, both in medicine and in leadership, and she was still flawed in her management. And although Ethan put Connie's leadership on a pedestal at present, as an unattainable target, she was not perfect either.

"It's not all __typical winter,__ though. It's frosty in more ways than one in our ED at the moment."

Lily couldn't help the corners of her mouth turn slightly upwards, despite Ethan's obvious hurt and wish for change. "You talk like a poetry book sometimes," she remarked. "I love it. I could listen to you all night." Hastily, she covered her mouth with the fingers of her hand that wasn't curled around her glass, pulling away from where she had had contact with Ethan's hands. What she'd said was true enough, but there was something strangely forbidden about saying it. She wasn't long out of a serious relationship, and Ethan was entirely there for the taking, as her boss. And still, the words had had all the pleasure of a boiled sweet rolling around her mouth.

Ethan's train of thought, while momentarily derailed by Lily's sweet observation, would reach its station by hook or by crook. "You know I've signed Dylan off for three weeks? Sam came to me and practically demanded it."

Lily bit her bottom lip. If there had been no alcohol involved this evening, would the conversation have taken this turn? It wasn't classified information, especially not to her, but it still felt all kinds of wrong to be talking about someone that they worked with, outside of work, when it was a sensitive issue. "I didn't know it was three weeks," she said, casting her mind back to the difficult exchange she'd last had with Dylan, a few days ago. She also didn't know why Sam was suddenly taking such an interest, but this was neither the time nor the place to bring that up.

Ethan had the good grace to lower his voice before speaking again. "Did you have __any__ idea that he might have been drinking to excess?" Lily had known that he'd been struggling with OCD again, and she'd understandably wanted to be discreet about that, but he thought she might have passed on that other bit of information if she'd been privy to it.

The residual taste of white wine in Lily's mouth, which had been sweet and soothing, suddenly turned bitter. __I'm an alcoholic, Lily, not a charity case.__ She felt a rush of guilt for enjoying a drink at all, as well as for not trusting her instinct. She __had__ noticed there was something off about Dylan; she had even suspected that he was hungover. But her view had been blinkered by disbelief and perpetual optimism. She hadn't wanted to allow the thought that someone so… someone so __like Dylan__ could possibly be afflicted with something like alcoholism.

"I didn't want to believe it, so I just didn't." It sounded even more pathetic when spoken aloud. "I should have said something, I should have —"

"—it wouldn't have made any difference." Ethan was unfaltering on this point. "Your intrinsic goodness wants you to think that you might have changed it all, if only you had reacted differently. I know you probably don't believe me." He watched Lily look down at her glass sadly, and wished he'd just kept the conversation well clear of work. "Lily, look at me," he said, waiting for her to meet his eyes. "You couldn't have known how this would pan out, and you __could not have changed it.__ "

Lily shrugged. "Okay," she replied, because it was easier than arguing. She took her glasses off and rubbed her eyes. The combination of a week's shifts in the ED and more than her usual consumption of alcohol was catching up with her.

* * *

It was a little past midnight when both Lily and Ethan admitted that they had been awake for far too many hours and it was time to go home. Both also admitted that it had been an expected but wonderful evening.

While Lily might have insisted on Ethan not being gentlemanly and paying her share of the bill, she was all too happy to accept his offer of walking her home. It was pitch-black save for orange street lights and warm glows escaping around curtains of houses they passed. Lily found it took more effort than normal to put one foot in front of the other, and this was not all entirely down to being tired. She thought that she might well make up with a headache in the morning.

They were almost back to Lily's flat when minute snowflakes began to swirl out of the sky.

"It always feels so much more Christmassy when it snows, doesn't it?" she said, her voice and breaths visible and rising in front of her face.

"This is barely snow," Ethan said, laughing a bit.

"Ah, but it's close enough!" Lily protested. "If this is all we'll get, then I'll happily take it!"

All inhibitions dropped, by alcohol and tiredness, she broke out of step with Ethan and spun around on the pavement. Ethan couldn't help himself smiling: he couldn't remember the last time he'd seen her so happy. She put her foot down in a puddle that had frozen solid, however, slipping and nearly falling. Ethan stepped forward at once and prevented this from happening. Lily's smile was still broad and joyful.

"Alright?" he checked, but there was no reason to be concerned.

"Yes, alright," Lily agreed, smiling.

* * *

They were inside Lily's building, hovering at the bottom of the stairs because Lily knew there was something she badly needed to say and it wasn't fair to force Ethan to listen to it in the freezing cold outside.

Although that moment with the icy puddle had been unashamedly joyful, Ethan's next words brought Lily back down to earth with a crash. It was quite unintentional on his part, but it served to remind her of everything wrong, rather than reinforcing everything that was right.

"This has been such a lovely evening, Lily, thank you." He kissed her cheek, hoping that she would read more from it than politeness. She didn't recoil away from him, perhaps he would have preferred it if she had, but she stiffened, closing her eyes and freezing up. "Lily? I'm sorry, I didn't mean to take liberties, I just…"

"It's not you, Ethan, I'm sorry." She rubbed her lips with the fingertips of her left hand, her final traces of lipstick giving up at long last. Gesturing for Ethan to follow suit, she sat down on the second-to-bottom stair and looked at him intently. "There's something I really have to tell you, and I feel dreadful for springing it on you after we had a wonderful night. I don't want you to think it's all because of you — none of it is because of you, it's all me, and I — you were being so nice to me!"

"Take a breath, and start again."

Lily took a measured, slow breath. "I applied for a research post in Hong Kong."

This had been a closely guarded secret, so to finally say it aloud felt rather strange. She wasn't sure she liked the fact very much when it was out in the open. She hadn't told anyone about it; she had not even mentioned it to Elle, who had brought it up in the first place. She hadn't really admitted to herself that it was real.

Ethan said nothing, so Lily was compelled to keep talking, even though it was ridiculously late and everything felt heavy, not just her eyelids.

"I pressed 'submit' when I just wanted to get away. After everything that happened with Iain and Sam, I just wanted to be a thousand miles from here."

"I didn't realise you were so unhappy," Ethan said, frowning. "I should have noticed." He put an arm around Lily's shoulders, desperate that she wouldn't feel so alone anymore.

"When?" Lily said. "You were busy. Cal," she said carefully, "Mrs Beauchamp, London, and now everything else."

"Dylan and Sam, you mean?"

"Yes. But I was thinking more about that blog."

Ethan sighed. "I was never, __am never,__ too busy for you." He paused. "It's a fantastic opportunity, you would be a credit to their team."

Lily wondered whether he meant that, or whether he was just making all the right noises. It had all become so much more complicated, tonight. Of course she still partly wanted to leave, but after an evening like this, she felt conflicted: Ethan sort of made her want to stay. "If I go, will you be here, if I come back?"

"If?"

Lily shrugged because she didn't know what to say. Did he mean __if__ she took up the post in Hong Kong? Because she was still questioning herself on this matter: deeply worrying was the prestige attached to the post, if she was offered a place then she would not be expected to turn it down. Or did Ethan mean __if__ she came back to Holby? Because that was infinitely complicated too, intensified by the events of this evening. Her eyebrows furrowed sadly, but she would not allow herself to cry, despite the late hour and the emotions running wild.

Ethan nudged her gently, drawing her out of her thoughts. "Stupid question, really," he carried on, not in relation to his question but Lily's instead. "I'll always be here for you."

Lily bit her lip. "I'm really glad about that." She took a deep breath and stood up. "Thank you so much for tonight." When he stood up, she kissed his cheek, wishing she was brave enough to linger there longer. She self-consciously fiddled with her glasses, but Ethan pulled her hand away.

"Stop," he said. "Your glasses are beautiful, you've no need to worry about those. Use that brain of yours for the research post interview."

Lily smiled, and finally said goodbye.

* * *

She had thought that Iain was the only exception to her status of Ice Princess, the only one to look past her coldness and predisposition to rub people up the wrong way. But it was beginning to dawn on her that while Iain had made her feel special, he had begun to turn her into someone she was not. With Ethan, however, she had always been able to be herself - he melted her iciness in the kindest way and she found it so easy to be kind in return.

* * *

 **Leave me a review, let me know what you think :)**


	12. Chapter 12

**Hey, I'm back! Have been writing this on and off since the beginning of June, while I've been away on an international trip with uni - but now at last I'm home, in the mindset to write, and I think it's about right to publish once more! Hope you enjoy it :)**

* * *

Holby, December 2017

Enough was enough. Against all advice, Connie Beauchamp was returning to the ED, because it was time for monumental change. She had been aware of Rage in Resus and reading it too, since the very beginning. She doubted the authenticity of some of the allegations but did not doubt in the slightest that Ethan's good nature would be doing him no favours whatsoever.

The anonymous blogger's days were numbered.

Although it had become quite normal now, for Connie to put on her makeup sitting at her dressing table rather than standing before the bathroom mirror, it was still somewhat startling to see her reflection as it was now. It no longer upset her to touch her bare scalp before putting on her dark wig, but it was disheartening that the foundation she had used for years no longer was the perfect match for her newly-paled complexion. And while she had to accept that her clothes didn't sit as perfectly on her thinner frame, it was nothing short of humiliating that her weakness required the wearing of flat shoes.

Nonetheless, it was somewhat comforting that the members of the ED stood a little taller when she passed them, striding with a miraculously-summoned confidence into the thick of it.

"Connie," Charlie said, greatly surprised. "You're back."

Connie looked at him plainly, not wanting to start her first day by challenging him for stating the obvious. She did, however, raise one eyebrow. "It would appear so."

"I mean that no-one was told you'd be coming back today," he elaborated, trying not to make clear that he thought she was coming back too soon.

"I think I can return to my own department without calling ahead for a ticker tape parade, Charlie." The beginning of a warm smile flickered on her lips, which was more than she would offer to most people. She accepted his brief hug, too, if only because it seemed not many eyes were on them. "I'd like to speak to everyone, in the staffroom, as soon as possible," she added firmly. "Can I rely on you to sort that?"

"Everybody?" he questioned dubiously.

Connie nodded, her smile fading. She rested one hand on the desk beside her, hoping that he would not notice her effort to hold herself upright.

If Charlie did notice, he said nothing of it. "You can always rely on me," he said, before heading off to rally the troops.

* * *

While Charlie would do almost anything for Connie, within reason, it was an unenviable task to find every available doctor and nurse on shift. Nobody challenged his request, especially when they knew for whom he acted as a messenger, but only Duffy went further than quiet acceptance.

"Mrs Beauchamp? What on earth is she doing back so soon?" she asked, frowning slightly.

"Your guess is as good as mine," Charlie replied.

"It's not as though we're on our knees in need of a turnaround," Duffy observed truthfully. "I know Ethan had some teething problems, but he is certainly holding his own now."

"Ah, but does Connie know this?" Charlie put a hand on Duffy's arm, lingering there for a few seconds. He smiled when she shifted her arm to momentarily hold his hand. He brushed his lips across her knuckles, stopping himself short of making the point that perhaps Ethan did not know either that he was making steps in the right direction.

* * *

If anyone noticed the lack of Louboutins in the impromptu meeting, they had the courtesy not to bring it up. Connie stood before them all, wearing her flat shoes and determined expression. She scanned the team for anything glaringly obvious that had changed in her absence. Dr Masum was mysteriously glasses-less, Lily seemed uncharacteristically uncertain, and Dylan was suspiciously absent.

Lily, from her position to the rear of the amassed group, discreetly looked Connie up and down. The Clinical Lead (had she returned to usurp power from under Ethan's nose precisely when he was getting a little more used to it, Lily wondered?) seemed to have lost height and all previous imposition, something not purely attributable to her footwear. Connie was much thinner: Lily didn't like to even mentally consider that she was a shadow of her former self, but that assessment was completely appropriate. However, when Lily saw her raise one eyebrow and purse her immaculately made-up, dark red lips, she saw a bit of the old Connie once more. It was something of a comfort, for her to still be the same when so much in the ED was changing or had already done so.

"This team," Connie began, leaning back on the wall behind her (she hoped imperceptibly to the small crowd), "is only as strong as the weakest link in its chain." Clichés, abhorrent as they were, had their place. "At present, the weak link is dragging all of us down." It felt strange to say _us_ when she had been absent for so long and still felt some way outside of her team. "Rage in Resus has gone on for too long."

Connie saw Lily drop her gaze to the floor — something which, under normal circumstances, would have been an immediate alert to guilt. Lily's allegiance to Holby City Hospital was not a normal circumstance, however. After the car accident with Gemma Dean, Lily might easily have died if not for the response of the team here. The registrar owed her life to the department, and Connie highly doubted that Lily's facial expression was anything other than sympathy and concern.

"I will find out who has been writing that blog. And I _will_ put a stop to it, at any cost."

At these words, Connie scanned the group of doctors and nurses once more. Several looked satisfied, pleased that something would finally be done about the emotional drain and reputational damage on the department. When Connie dismissed them all, a ginger-haired F1 smiled at her cheerfully, a gesture which was not returned. Everyone had to start somewhere, but it was not friendliness which would earn the respect of Connie Beauchamp.

It was strange that while almost everyone filed out of the staffroom to continue the shift, Alicia remained, tugging anxiously on her stethoscope where it hung around her neck. Connie's suspicion was aroused immediately. She stood her ground firmly and would have waited for the younger doctor to buckle and leave first, had it not been for an intense wave of nausea which completely derailed her determination to get to the bottom of things here and now. She walked from the staff room with an air of calm, expertly concealing how close she was to throwing up until she was safely behind the locked door of a toilet cubicle. Even in the throes of low immunity, she could not shake the image of Alicia seeming to fade before her eyes, losing all traces of her effervescent personality, perhaps about to admit to something that could change everything. Although on second thought, that last part was perhaps nothing more than wishful thinking.

* * *

Ethan arrived for work a few hours later, and quickly gained the strangest impression that all eyes were on him. It was not dissimilar to the feeling he'd experienced in the morning following his cancellation of all leave, weeks earlier. He felt vulnerable; it was hard to hold his head high and keep walking to his office when it felt for all the world as though he was being willed to trip at every step.

Lily stopped him, a few paces short of his office door. He ignored the slight flutter in the pit of his stomach on seeing her - they had not discussed the conclusion of their evening together at all since it had happened (they had had precious little time in which to do so, and neither had known quite what to say of it.)

"Ethan, come with me, please," she said urgently, before leading him out of earshot of prying listeners.

* * *

"Why is everyone looking at me as though as I'm a UXB?" he asked, realising too late that his inner history geek was showing. He explained himself, in response to Lily's perplexed expression. "An unexploded bomb. Sorry."

For a moment, Lily forgot the seriousness of the situation and met Ethan's gaze with warmth instead of worry. Her lips twitched minutely towards a smile. "Don't apologise for knowing things that others do not." It was something of a challenge to force herself back to the point of the conversation. "They are looking at you like that because you need to watch your back about this blog."

Ethan's face fell. The last time he had checked, this morning, there was nothing new. "I only spoke to Jac yesterday," he said, a hand resting neatly on the back of his neck which allowed him, invisibly to Lily, to gently press his fingernails into his skin.

"I don't think that it's Jac Naylor you should be worried about," Lily replied. "Mrs Beauchamp is back, and she's on a single track to shut down the blog." She watched Ethan's demeanour shift; she wondered whether he was relieved to have Connie take over or disappointed not to have solved the mystery himself, first. Hazarding a guess, she added swiftly, "don't look so relieved. She's not herself, somehow. I don't think she's well at all."

In Lily's mind, Connie's timeline of illness did not add up. She couldn't be back to full health yet, especially not enough to work again (and no doubt it was Connie's intention to take back the reins of the ED as soon as possible, if not instantly.)

* * *

Warily, Ethan made his way back to his office. It didn't come as too much of a surprise to find that his desk was already occupied, although his face may not have reflected this as he walked in and closed the door behind him.

"Connie," he began, his eyebrows knitting together as he attempted to reconcile all previous experiences of this woman. Above all, he knew she was vulnerable - mentally and in terms of her presently shaky immunity. He met her piercing gaze momentarily but had to look away as his mind wandered painfully to the dreadful way he'd managed that brief moment in which their lips had touched in London.

"I'd usually expect you to knock," Connie said, devoid of anything but familiar, unflinching firmness.

This rubbed Ethan up the wrong way at once. "Not when this office is presently mine," he countered coolly. This was not the reunion he had anticipated. Any fleeting hoped he had had of finally being liberated of this title of Clinical Lead would have to be purely that, fleeting, because there was no way he would surrender it to Connie when she appeared so frail. "I don't think you should be here." It was a brave, potentially unwise assertion. If Ethan had not been so sure in his conviction, he might have crumbled under Connie's withering gaze.

"Gladly, I do not have to follow your expert medical opinion." Connie's voice was cold as she pushed herself up to standing. "I am not so stupid as to return without clearance." The lie came far too easily.

Ethan didn't believe her, even for a second. "Connie—"

"—No. You made your choice perfectly clear, Dr Hardy. In this department, and everywhere else, it is Mrs Beauchamp, to you."

Lost for words, Ethan realised that the placard bearing his name and the title of 'Clinical Lead' rested on the desk in front of him, rather than in the holder on the door. He turned on his heel and walked from the room, without saying anything more.

When the door swung shut, Connie sat down heavily and took several steadying breaths, her eyes squeezed shut with the room spinning around her.

* * *

Owing to it being December, night fell very early. It was almost completely dark by a little after five, which was a shame because it was easier for Dylan to stay in control in the daylight. No matter whether he had been alone, happily so, all day, solitude at night was far more oppressive. Darkness was uncomfortable loneliness, darkness was increasingly unfightable compulsions, darkness was the reason that the whiskey on the table suddenly seemed so attractive.

He should never have bought it. _You can't be compelled to drink something you don't possess,_ his brain kept reminding him. Though he also wondered how long it would have taken for the compulsion to force him out of the boat to buy it anyway.

The bottle was still sealed, standing tall less than eight inches away from him. Dylan sat at the kitchen table, arms folded. If he could just stay completely still, he could pretend that everything had stopped, that he did not exist. Because that would be so much easier than this agonising addiction which had him convinced that just one little drink would switch off the OCD for a while. The last dregs of rationality in his mind were arguing that this was not true, but Dylan knew it was a losing battle.

He rested his elbows on the table and tucked his head down, hands at the nape of his neck as he sighed with exasperation. Why did it have to be so hard?

Dervla got up from her basket and walked delicately over to where Dylan was sitting. Her claws ticked quietly on the laminated flooring. Halfway to Dylan, she paused to stretch: the break in her ticking footsteps made Dylan look up from his hunched moment of struggle. His eyes warmed a little, although he did not smile. A smile was not on the cards either when Dervla laid her head on his knees, but he stroked her ears fondly nonetheless.

"Alright," he mumbled, knowing exactly what her ulterior motive was for this moment of affection.

* * *

Lily's patient in resus was admitted to AAU in good time before the end of her shift. She used her last few minutes wisely, silently slipping under Connie's radar to assist with the consultant's own patient. Lily was worried but did not show her concern outwardly.

When she had finished work for the evening, she took a little time gathering her belongings, so that she could work out exactly what she was going to do. She couldn't pretend that nothing was going wrong here today — the fact that Mrs Beauchamp was not only a fully-grown adult but Lily's superior too, had no bearing. As a doctor, Lily had a duty of care which she could not help but live up to.

She found Ethan quite quickly and led him back to the staff room in a hurry.

"What's going on?" Ethan said, frowning as Lily closed the door behind them.

"I don't care what she says, whether your office is no longer yours, or even whether you're still in charge of the department or not," Lily began firmly. "You need to get Mrs Beauchamp to stop. She's working herself into the ground, and for what?"

Ethan's eyes widened in surprise. Lily's conviction was palpable, almost as strong as Ethan's belief that there was nothing he could do about this situation. "She won't listen to me!" he replied. "She categorically does not care for what I've got to say."

Lily dug her hands into her pockets, hunching her shoulders up so that her coat and scarf gathered deeply around her ears for a moment. She sighed. "Then make her care, and make her listen to you. She's sick, Ethan; you're the only one with any kind of influence and simultaneously the only one refusing to see what's right in front of you! It's not a secret, at least not to me, that you don't like the leadership role. But you're going to be stuck with it for an awful lot longer, if you can't convince her to take better care of herself."

Ethan knew that Lily was right. Of course she was right, she usually was. Her blunt delivery cut through his indecision: he had known all day that Connie was not herself, perhaps now he would be brave enough to act on this. But there remained the awfully sticky issue that Connie intensely disliked him at present. First and foremost because of London, and secondarily because he had dared suggest that her judgement to return had been flawed. However, it would appear that he was being proved correct. "I'll try and do something," he said quietly. "Will I see you tomorrow? I can't remember the rota off the top of my head."

"Bright and early," Lily replied, with a hint of a smile on her lips.

* * *

In resus, it was acutely obvious that Connie was unwell. When Ethan arrived, he authoritatively took the decision to take over Connie's patient. It was unpleasantly nerve-wracking: at first, he meekly listened until he was up to speed, more like an F1 than a consultant who, a few hours previously, had been semi-successfully running an emergency department. But as much as he was absorbing knowledge about the thirty-something male on the bed, he was also silently making judgement on the likelihood of Connie becoming a patient herself. Her face had paled dramatically, which was a statement indeed because she hadn't started the day with a wholly healthy colouring. Ethan didn't know how many of the staff in resus were fooled by Connie's stubbornness, but he could hear her breaths sounding unequal and far too much like hard work. It was impossible to tell for sure, but he thought she might be running a temperature, despite wearing a warm jumper (sleeves rolled up, obviously) so appearing to be cold.

"Dr Hardy, if you're going to linger… like a spare part," Connie began, feeling weaker with each passing second, "then stop it. Make yourself - useful." She had to get past this, prove to everyone, especially Ethan, that she was on the mend.

If Ethan had been the type, he might have seen red. In place of this, he stood a little taller, remembering Lily's perhaps-misplaced confidence in him. "I will," he replied firmly. With a rush of adrenaline, he pushed out his next sentence before he had a chance to change his mind.

"Mrs Beauchamp, with the greatest respect, get out of resus."

Heart thundering and mouth painfully dry, Ethan took over the patient and realised that in his sudden assertiveness, he had not even said 'please.' It was a wonder he had not been vapourised on the spot.

* * *

Dylan had been walking Dervla for a long time when he thought he saw a familiar figure standing in the dark on the quayside. He blinked a few times, wondering if he had at finally lost the plot and his brain had taken to inventing fictitious images, on top of everything else. But as he got closer, it was obvious that what he saw was completely true. Lily, all alone, stood under a weak street light, bundled up in winter apparel with her breath rising in front of her face in quickly-vanishing clouds.

"Lily?" he said, although there was no questioning her identity. "What are you doing here?" He was glad of Dervla's well-trained obedience at this moment, because Lily eyed her nervously despite her overall expression melting into one of relief.

"Oh good, I was beginning to think that my needle-in-a-haystack search would turn up nothing at all!"

"That doesn't answer the question," Dylan said. Belatedly, he thought that perhaps he shouldn't be so sharp with her.

"No," she agreed, unfazed. "I - um - I wanted to check you were okay." It felt strange to admit that. She did not verbalise the guilt that she felt for not asking sooner; for effectively blanking his existence since he had been granted leave. It hadn't been a fair way to treat him at all, after the information he had trusted her with.

"Really? Usually people run a mile - once they know that I drink, I mean." The words turned his stomach, but by saying it aloud, admitting that he dealt with things so badly, some of its power seemed to ebb away. But it was a stretch of the truth to say that it was usual to be left alone over this: there was only one notable example of anyone abandoning ship in the knowledge of his alcohol consumption. When that example, however, was the end of his starkly brief marriage, it was difficult not to dwell on its significance.

"Not me," Lily said firmly, wishing she had had this conversation earlier. "You're still a person. You're still you. You deserve someone checking you're alright."

Dylan highly doubted that he deserved anyone checking up on him, but was not ready to delve into the technicalities of his own lack of goodness.

"Are you?" Lily pressed. Beating around the bush with Dylan was not the way to make progress; she would not get an answer on his wellbeing by making small talk.

"Yes, I'm fine." It was easy enough to say.

"And the truth?" Lily saw through him at once and pushed harder.

"You're like a dog with a bone, you know that?" It wasn't said maliciously, rather his voice was kind, even a little admiring. It remained true, that out of the entire present ED team, Lily was the only one to try and level with him, to not immediately dismiss him for all his past (and present) abrasiveness. Dylan sighed. "It's exceptionally difficult to stay normal, when your normal is the total _abnormality_ of an ED, and even that has been taken away." He shrugged. "So I'm not good."

Lily's face fell, and Dylan wished he had the ability to sugar-coat the situation.

"You don't have to know what to say," he added. "It's - I mean - I appreciate you making the effort, and caring at all. Thank you," he said genuinely.

"You're welcome." Lily's reply was robotic. She didn't know what to do; she had an innate need to remedy this whole scenario, but she just didn't know how.

* * *

It was a while before Ethan returned to his office, but there would never have been enough time to offset the wrath he would have incurred in Connie. There was still a significant question over ownership of this office, but he treated it as though it was still his own, walking straight in despite his name no longer taking pride of place on the door. Against all odds, he still felt irresistibly that it was his responsibility to check on her.

He was surprised that she did not immediately verbally attack him on entering the office. But the surprise didn't last long, when he noticed how unwell she was. Curled in one corner of the office's sofa, her skin was deathly pale. The simple act of lifting her head from her knees, to see who had dared disturb her, appeared to ruin any sense of balance she might have clawed back. Ethan watched her squeeze her eyes shut, then press both her hands over her face.

"Don't say it," she said, sounding as though she was in pain. Her vulnerability was striking.

"I hardly think that it's the time or the place," Ethan said. He hadn't spoken all that loudly, however Connie had still winced like the sound of his voice had reverberated painfully for her. He lowered his tone considerably. "May I?" he asked, gesturing to the other end of the sofa in checking that he could sit there.

"Okay," Connie replied, her voice cracking slightly. She was so far removed, in this state, from the unmoving persona she had fought to present to the team this morning. Although it made her head pound, she cleared her throat: if she did not say now what she needed to say, she probably never would. "I didn't think you were up to the job, but I believe that you've proved yourself, Ethan. You were assertive, and even I must now accept that you made the right call. Well done." It was difficult to commend him when her insides were on fire and her teeth chattered.

Ethan had been seated with his hands clasped nervously in his lap. But once Connie had said her piece and it was clear there would be no animosity from her, he fell back to doctor-mode, because she needed someone to look after her. He reached for her left wrist and felt for her pulse with his fingertips. It raced worryingly. As an afterthought, while he still counted the flutters of blood under her skin, he reached out with his free hand to take hers, in a gesture of support and goodwill.

Connie did not shake off Ethan's hand. She held onto it tightly. Neither of them said much, but they didn't have to - they both knew that this was far from ideal. Her decision to return to the ED had likely played havoc in a body with little to no immunity, and they both knew full well that she was showing all the signs of a well-established infection. In a matter of minutes, Ethan excused himself momentarily from the office to call Connie's oncologist and to make an unusual request that he hoped would be honoured by the staff of the ED.

* * *

A little later, Ethan walked Connie slowly from his office to the lift. At first, she was reluctant to have him take her by the arm, but after just a few steps she knew she wouldn't get there alone. She looked around. There was a buzz of noise, as there always was in the ED, but there was no-one around at all. She had expected stares, concerned glances and whispers.

"Where is everyone?" she asked. Ethan's silence spoke volumes. "Ethan?"

"I asked them not to be here, for this." He continued looking straight ahead as they walked. "They respect you, so they were all very obliging."

Connie smiled. "I rather think that they fulfilled that request out of respect for their present Clinical Lead, not the incapacitated one."

He was greatly concerned for her health, but he still allowed himself a small smile: above all else, he valued her opinion on the running of the department. "Shall I come up with you?" he asked when the lift doors opened.

"No, I will be fine from here. Thank you, Ethan." She paused. "Put your name back in the office door. You've earned it."


	13. Chapter 13

Dublin, April 2009  


"They still want to know my next-of-kin," Sam said, leaning against Dylan's shoulder as the sun dropped lower over Phoenix Park.

Dylan knew, without further explanation, what Sam was talking about. Her first tour of Afghanistan was only a couple of months away — precisely the reason why they were in Ireland at all, snatching every spare bit of time in each other's company — and the subject of whose name would fill that hallowed spot had been weighing heavily on her mind.

"They say I should know by now."

"And don't you?" In Dylan's mind it was a simple decision: himself or her mother. But it was infinitely more complicated for Sam, for an untold multitude of reasons.

"Well, yes. I mean, sort of."

When she talked like that, she sounded so young. Too young to fight for her country, at any rate. "You realise that you cannot say __yes__ and then negate that with __sort of?__ "

Sam sighed. She sat up and looked at Dylan seriously. "Can it be you?" She had put far too much thought into this for him to flatly refuse (although she was almost sure that he wouldn't) and so much thought that it had been far harder than it ought to have been, to spit the words out. She needn't have worried; Dylan's response was precise, measured and utterly ordinary.

"I'm surprised that you even thought that you had to ask."  
It was a relief. They were sitting close to each other anyway, on their jackets in the grass after an uncharacteristically warm day, but Sam shuffled closer still. She slipped her hand into his and interlaced their fingers. It came as something of a surprise when he leaned in to kiss her first. She knew that they loved each other, but sometimes Dylan seemed reluctant to show it when they weren't behind closed doors. A remnant of all the sneaking around they had done in London, she supposed. Dylan was a creature of habit: the three-hundred-odd miles between them and King's, not to mention the many months, were probably irrelevant to him.

While he may have appeared nonplussed, Dylan actually could barely contain himself. He had __so__ wanted Sam to choose him, had been desperate for the validation that could only come from hearing that she wanted him to be the first to know any news from the tour.

Tomorrow, they would be going back up north, as a far more serious couple than they had been on leaving the patch. This was something that Dylan was certain of. He felt an overwhelming sense of duty to Sam now. In a way, he always had, knowing that being older carried a responsibility all of its own. But now, knowing for sure that she truly wanted him, there was one last thing that he had to do, that couldn't wait until after the tour.

Almost as soon as his idea had come to fruition, he was certain that intrusive thoughts about it would keep him awake for most of the night.

* * *

To say that Sam couldn't understand Dylan at this moment was an understatement. They had a car to return to the hire place, and a train back up to Thiepval Barracks that would leave, with or without them, in just under two hours. But here they were, back in the spot they had occupied until the sun had dropped out of sight the previous evening.

"What are we doing here, Dylan?" she asked patiently, wondering why on earth he looked on-edge. This trip had been so relaxed, spontaneous but still unpressured. She knew that the runaway train that was her approaching tour was having an effect on him and that it was increasingly difficult to read him as a result. Not that reading Dylan had ever been anything less than a difficult ask. Right now, his face wasn't blank (mercifully) but instead was written all over with… concentration? Anticipation?

"You'll have to excuse me," Dylan said, instead of answering her question. "I'm not good at… this. Being the person that I know you need me to be, making significant gestures, saying exactly what I mean —"

"You rarely struggle to say what you mean, in my experience!" He was also __everything__ that she needed him to be. Despite the quirks that other people couldn't stand, she wouldn't be without his wit and honesty, or the very quirks that other people detested.

"I mean -" Dylan sighed, mildly exasperated. "Saying what I mean, when it comes to how I feel about you. Saying things that I need you to know, about how important you are to me." He didn't tell her nearly enough that the very fact she had chosen him, with all his sharp edges and awkwardness, when she could have had someone so much better, meant the absolute world to him. "Just because I don't say it, I don't want you to think that you're not the best thing that's ever happened to me."

Sam smiled, embarrassed but nonetheless feeling wonderful from his words. Her hair was loose and fell over both shoulders; she twirled her fingers in the ends before realising that this was plainly ridiculous. Dylan could say beautifully romantic things without her reducing herself to a gushing, embarrassed schoolgirl.

"After what you decided yesterday, I — I've known for a while, actually, that I wanted to ask. But I can't let you go away on tour without at least having an answer."

Sam felt her heart beat a little faster. When Dylan dropped onto one knee in the grass and produced a ring box from his pocket (how long had he been keeping that under wraps?) she pressed cool fingertips over her lips.

At that moment, she remembered an old friend from sixth form. After Sam had messily broken up with a boy she had thought she loved, this girl had put her back together again, mostly by telling her that she deserved to be swept off her feet at the top of the Eiffel Tower. But smiling gleefully down at Dylan, Sam knew that she wanted nothing more than __this.__

"I know we haven't got long before you go away, so obviously it won't be anything immediate. But Sam, will you marry me?"

Sam bit her bottom lip, her face a picture of joy. She was about to say a simple 'yes,' when something from the night before sprang into her head, that couldn't have been a more appropriate answer.

"I'm surprised that you eventhought you had to ask."

* * *

Holby, December 2017

His conversation with Lily, brief as it had been, had given Dylan enough strength not to drink that night. But the following evening, as it got dark again, he found himself gritting his teeth and wishing the night away. What was it about daylight, that made things easier to handle? The bottle of whiskey was in exactly the same place: he had so far resisted insofar as he hadn't touched it. But he was seated at the table again, staring at it. An inanimate object had all this power over him, and he hated it. The internal conflict was unbearable. He wanted to drink it, of course, but at the same time, he wanted to grab the bottle and launch it out of the kitchen window. To hell with the environmental impact of sinking a glass bottle in the marina.

Dylan's phone was cradled in his hands. He gazed intently at it as though it would give him a solution. He unlocked and locked the screen repeatedly. The indecision was tearing him apart. He didn't know what to do, feeling more and more alone by the minute. The OCD thoughts had been loud for days now, but they seemed more intense tonight. Fever pitch.

Unlocking the screen once more, he opened up his contacts and scrolled down to Z. He tapped on the envelope icon next to Zoe's name and stared at the blank box where a message should be typed. There was a tiny photograph next to where neat capitals said 'ZOE HANNA.' Dylan couldn't remember where it had been taken, and the close cropping didn't give many clues. But the smiling face of his best friend was enough to convince him that the message he needed to send was a terrible idea. Zoe was in Michigan, no doubt having a wonderful time. Interrupting all of that with a sudden message to the tune of impending doom would be unfair at best and grossly unkind at worst. Zoe deserved better. Dylan looked down at the message box again, where all he'd managed to type was a paltry _'_ _ _Hi, Zoe.'__ He held his thumb down on the delete button and watched the letters disappear one by one. There were not acceptable words in the English language to break the news to a friend, three and a half thousand miles away, that one was sufficiently mentally ill to be trying to regulate oneself by drinking to blackout. No, that was something which fit the category of things that Zoe did not know, which could not hurt her. It would hurt her far too much, to hear about this at all, never mind through a text message.

Dylan placed his phone down carefully on the table, screen down. He picked up the bottle of whiskey and unscrewed the cap. The smell of it hit him at once, simultaneously drawing him in and turning his stomach. He gritted his teeth and replaced the lid of the bottle. He pushed himself back from the table, the chair scraping noisily against the floor as he did so.

"No," he muttered to himself, pacing up and down the kitchen.

* * *

He was still pacing, ten minutes later. Dervla let out a disgruntled moan to register her disgust, which Dylan did not trust himself to respond to calmly. Things were not getting better, instead, they were getting worse. There was not even a clear compulsion in his mind, nothing that he could do to release some of the tension in his brain. The only thing left was to drink, which he categorically did not want to do.

He picked up his phone from the table and unlocked the screen once more. He opened up the contacts afresh, and scrolled.

S.

Sam Nicholls.

His thumb hovered over the number. It was all so complicated, the shitstorm of emotions that she still worked free in him. She had probably changed her number by now - anyone else would have done, with all this time that had passed. He had never deleted her entry in his contact list, because… Well, he didn't have a solid reason. Not one that he cared to admit.

Holding the phone at arms length in front of him, he stared at the screen nervously, before shifting his gaze to his dog, who kept shooting him disapproving glances from her basket. Dylan tilted his head a little, as though asking her opinion on his decision. Dervla mirrored him, unhelpfully giving no indication of judgement.

"Yes, thank you for your input," he said to her, scowling.

It wasn't a nagging doubt that made him hesitate further. It was the very real voice of internal criticism.

Sam wouldn't have kept the same number. Their divorce had been messy and neither one had wanted anything to do with the other in the immediate aftermath. If she had kept her same number, she would have blocked his. If she hadn't blocked his number, she certainly would have deleted it so wouldn't recognise it on caller ID. Sam hated answering calls from numbers she didn't immediately recognise. She could be flawlessly confident and gutsy at times, but at others she was deeply flawed by her vulnerabilities. Sometimes, Dylan forgot that while age and experience were on his side when it came to summoning confidence, their age gap meant the same could not always be said of Sam.

Above all, they didn't love each other anymore. They didn't like each other very much, either. Both facts had been verbalised more than once, and they echoed tauntingly in Dylan's mind. Calling Sam was a terrible idea; he shouldn't do it. But what else did he have left to do, to save himself from spiralling further into madness?

Dylan threw his phone at the couch, forcing distance between himself and it when it was only adding to his present stress level. It bounced off at once and hit the floor, skidding on its end before settling screen-down.

Almost immediately, his train of thought was overridden by a loud, intrusive compulsion. __If you can get to the phone in three steps, the screen won't be broken.__

Dylan breathed a long sigh of relief. It was all relative, of course, but to have a thought that resembled his normal was glorious at a time when everything was so wildly up in the air. The relief was temporary, however. Somewhere between the first and second carefully calculated steps, his heart rate picked up and he began to question his sanity. Why did he have to be so wound up over something he knew to be fabricated by an unwell mind? Why did his brain have so much power? He got to the phone within the steps of course, so the screen was fine. _ _No,__ he reminded himself consciously, __the screen is fine because the phone didn't fall hard.__ He tried to tell himself that it was irrational to think that taking measured steps across the room had had any bearing on the outcome of this situation. But the irrational thoughts were louder.

"Shut up, shut up, shut up!" he said aloud before he sat down on the sofa and leaned down over his knees, making himself as small as he could. This was unbearable. Hard as it was to admit, he couldn't cope alone, tonight.

Before he could change his mind, he unlocked the screen, opened the contacts, scrolled to Sam's name and clicked 'call.'

He paced up and down again as he heard one ring after another. Maybe it wasn't her number anymore, maybe she didn't want to pick up his call, maybe she didn't know it was him and was ignoring it for that reason, maybe he was pinning too much hope on this, maybe he was going crazy, maybe —

"Dylan?!" Sam's voice was incredulous; even though he couldn't see her he knew that her eyes were wide in surprise. She had probably pushed a hand through her hair too, if it was loose, or if it was up in a bun, buried her fingertips in the untidy, escaping parts at the back.

"Yes. Me." It was all well and good, having made the call, but now he could hear her voice his mouth was dry and it was difficult to push words out. This had been a terrible idea.

There was a short silence before Sam spoke again. Dylan wondered if she was rolling her eyes, wishing he'd get to his point a little faster. "One question - why? Why me?"

If he had been feeling any different, Dylan might have stalled for time by caustically pointing out that she had in fact asked two questions, not one. While one hand was still holding the phone, he brought the other up to his mouth in a fist. He squeezed his eyes shut and bit the skin between the knuckle and first joint of the index finger.

"Dylan?" Sam sounded mildly impatient now.

"I need help." The words fell out of his mouth before he could catch them.

Sam let out a short expulsion of air, almost a laugh. "Well, there's a first time for everything, isn't there?"

Dylan nearly ended the call there and then. If he couldn't even make __her__ listen, then there was no hope. He stepped backwards, and began pacing anxiously once more. "I mean it, I need help. I need… you - your help. I don't know who else to call, even though you don't want anything to do with me - please, Samantha." He froze, jerking his head up straight in surprise. He'd used her full name, with no sharpness, teasing or malice. He'd said it softly, pleading, with a gentleness he had not afforded her in some time.

"Alright, Dylan. I'm leaving the ED now. I'll be…" There was a pause, during which Dylan could only assume that Sam was either checking her watch, or trying not to be overheard by the ED's walls with ears. "Forty minutes, at the most. My things—"

"— are in the ambulance station. Yes. Um, thank you. For not… immediately saying no."

Sam didn't know what to say. She could have easily refused outright, but something in his request had stopped her doing so. Only Dylan. No-one else could ever have such an impact on her. "I'll be there soon."

Sam couldn't explain the strange, bad feeling she had about that phone call. It was so unlike Dylan to ask forhelp, and even the way he had done it was so unlike himself that she couldn't shake the premonition that tonight was going to be very different to the way she had expected it would turn out. He'd repeated himself uncertainly and his words were not crisp and separate as they usually were. And he had missed far too many opportunities to be disparaging. Something was very, very wrong.

* * *

It was weird to have Sam on the boat for the first time. At least, it was weird for Dylan. Dervla seemed to think that it was the best thing that had ever happened, and had forgotten her advancing years in her excitement to be reunited with one of her humans who had been absent for far too long.

Sam couldn't deny that seeing Dervla again was lovely, and an adequate distraction in an otherwise awkward situation. Looking around, she found herself thinking of her flat, where Christmas had already arrived. On the boat, however, it could have been any season at all. There were no twinkling fairy lights or old decoration. The very thought of Dylan decorating for Christmas of his own accord was laughable, she knew, but there was something unnerving about his total lack of recognition of the time of year. Sam found herself sitting cross-legged on the floor, while Dervla made free with the available cuddles. But Sam always kept half of her attention on Dylan, who was suspiciously quiet despite his earlier plea for help. It didn't add up — why didn't he just out with it? She stood up and looked at Dylan, who was wringing his hands in a way she had seen before.

"Out with it, Dylan," she said directly. "You called me for a reason, so out with it."

Dylan took a step away from her nervously, and turned his back to her for a moment. He was finding it increasingly difficult to keep a lid on his mounting distress. Facing away from her, it was easier to speak. "I don't know why I called you," he muttered. "You're the reason I'm like this, you're every reason why I'm in this state at all."

"What am I doing here, then?" Sam challenged, fire in her eyes.

"Because that's what you do, you - you - you pick me back up and put me back together again, even when you don't mean to, even when —" He was still facing away from her, but could not bring himself to accuse her of not caring.

"I don't understand, Dylan," said Sam. "Why does it matter that I'm back in Holby? Why do you even care? I fail to see how my presence should have any impact on you. Why should it make any difference whatsoever?"

Dylan turned back around sharply. "Because it's you!" he exploded. "It's always you, and it has always __been__ you! I know that I fucked everything up, and God, I wish I'd done things differently, but you weren't perfect either! And I still don't know how I feel around you, about you, whatever. But I know that when I'm not absolutely furious with myself for how it all ended, and when my brain is not on a path to self-destruction, I feel the same as I did every time I met you at Brize and every time I was desperate for you to come home."

Sam flinched several times during Dylan's outburst. It surprised her that he still felt so passionately about everything that had happened between them: she had always assumed that he had compartmentalised it, blanked it and pretended that it had never happened at all. It was astonishing that he seemed to have admitted that he had never let her go, after all this time. But mostly, it shocked her to the core to hear him swear. She had a soldier's grasp of expletives; she could swear competently and creatively when it came down to it. But she had only ever known Dylan to swear when he was out-of-control drunk, so inebriated that he could barely put a sentence together.

"Are you drunk?" she asked impulsively. She regretted her cutting words at once on seeing Dylan's face fall with disappointment. She should have known better: they were standing close by each other and there was no familiar, cloying scent of alcohol on his clothes or his breath. Which was strange, considering the reason why he was not in work at the moment. She'd expected to arrive here and find him in the same sorry state she'd last left him in, in Oxford in 2011.

"Of course not." Dylan's retort was sharp. "I'm not drunk, I have OCD and I am very much not in control at the moment - oh. __Oh.__ " Dylan covered his mouth with both hands but there was no taking back the words he had rushed out. His eyes creased in embarrassment and distress. Sam said nothing — he would have preferred it if she had immediately babbled platitudes, or indeed said __anything__ at all. Anything so that this ringing silence could not take hold.

Sam struggled to comprehend what Dylan had said. Everything was very, very quiet. Her relationship with Dylan had always been complicated, but now, with this new revelation, it was less as though a spanner had been put in the works and more like 'the works' had stopped, gone backwards and promptly exploded.

"I don't — Dylan — just — what?" She wasn't sure that anyone else had ever had the power to render her speechless.

There was no way to pretend that he hadn't disclosed his OCD. 'OCD' didn't rhyme with anything, didn't sound like anything else. It couldn't be misheard, especially not in a quiet place like this. "Exactly that," Dylan said, his voice low but quite clear. "I'm sure there were better ways of telling you, but it's out now. I have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. And I called you tonight because I didn't know what else to do."

Looking around the boat, Sam's eyes fell on the bottle of whiskey in the middle of the kitchen table. She couldn't reconcile her past experience of her ex-husband with the new knowledge she'd gained. It was a difficult thing, not to immediately get angry with him on seeing evidence that parts of him had not changed. But the revelation that he had OCD, did it have a bearing on any of it? She had a funny feeling that an awful lot of her core beliefs about Dylan were about to be turned on their heads.

"I'm going to make coffee, and then I think we've got a lot to talk about." She had never been the perfectly domestic wife, but it seemed that both of them had papered over the cracks in their relationship for so long that a little more pretence might be necessary to get through the impending conversation.

"You're going to need help, then," Dylan said. His heart was beating like a kettledrum, so hard that he could feel it in his ears. Having laid bare his closest-guarded secret, he had hoped that perhaps he would be able to calm down. But it appeared that this was not the case. More pretending that things were fine, then.

Sam looked at him with a slight frown, about to contest his accusation of her inadequacy.

"You don't know where anything is," he elaborated, gesturing to the kitchen with an unsteady hand.

Things were stilted and strange between them, especially with this earth-shattering revelation, but in that moment Sam felt a little of what had come before. A little bit of their normal.


	14. Chapter 14

**It's been a long time since I updated, oops! I've spent too long procrastinating this chapter - it's been in mind since I first had the idea for this fic, so I really wanted to get it right. Leave me a review, let me know what you think x  
**

Holby, December 2017

There was a strange silence between Dylan and Sam as they sat on the same sofa (with space between them), both staring into their steaming cups. They had made their own drinks, in the end, although it had pleased Dylan greatly that he could still recall how she took her coffee. Hers was stronger but had two sugars, whereas he had more milk but no sugar at all. He could remember a time when she'd become sugar-conscious and cut down to a single spoonful, but the stress of King's had meant that didn't last long.

For a little while, both were at a loss for what to say.

Sam cleared her throat uncertainly. "How long have you known?" It seemed a logical place to start, although she realised a little late that perhaps he didn't know; mental health was rarely cut and dry.

Dylan, who had both hands wrapped around his mug, let out a slow breath. It was a relief, to finally break this immense secret to Sam, but it was by no means easy to do so in the detail that she deserved. And he suspected she might be somewhat offended by the whole truth. "A long time," he began. It was true enough, but there was more to say, of course. "I think my brain has always been wired differently. But I can't tell you exactly when all of this started."

"That's okay." Sam pressed her lips tightly together before going on. "It was a bit of an unfair question, really."

"No, it wasn't. I —" There was a serious stumbling block: the revelation of the whole truth was most likely going to hurt her. He sighed. "As far back as King's, when I was your mentor, I think I was displaying compulsions. Not usually publicly, of course, but they were there." He winced as Sam flinched beside him. He couldn't look at her now. "And… and rather a lot, after that, as well."

Sam couldn't take all of this in. He'd had diagnosable OCD for the entirety of the time that she had known him, the entirety of their unconventionally happy relationship, and the entirety of their all-too-brief, quickly souring marriage. And she had never realised.

Although, at times, she had wondered why he was so particular. Back at King's, his perfectionism had been grating at times, and had earned him one hell of a reputation in the hospital, not just in the ED. His careful checking of all his students' work had shown him to never let even the smallest thing slide. It turned Sam's stomach now, to think that perhaps this had been something he had not been able to control. The fact was, she'd always seen (and mentally labelled) it as 'obsessive' and had __still__ thought it was just another of Dylan's quirks. How much of the Dylan she knew was inextricably linked to his OCD? She was stunned. She had learned that Dylan's word was to be trusted: his sometimes downright painful honesty had seen to that. In return she had implicitly trusted him. How different might things have been if she'd pushed a little harder? It was uncomfortable for her memory of the past to warp and change as she examined it under this new lens.

"I think you should list it all," Dylan said. He swallowed nervously, trying and failing to maintain his normal tone.

"What?"

"List the things that seem like red flags, now that you know. That's what you're trying to work out, isn't it?" He hoped that his assumption had been correct. Once upon a time, he and Sam had been on a very similar wavelength, and it had been far easier to know what she was thinking.

There wasn't the time to question how, after all this time, he could still read her like a book. More pressing was his ridiculous proposal. "I don't want to do that, it's not fair on you."

"It was not fair on __you__ for me to hide my OCD and make you think that I was purely a loathsome husband."

Sam rolled her eyes. "You were not a loathsome husband. Not always." The last two words, she hoped, cushioned the impact of her admittance that things had not been all that terrible between them. Better to throw in a caveat, to remind them both that there was not a 'them' anymore. She met his eye although it seemed that he didn't want to. There was a tiny spark of something between their glances.

"Just list them, Sam."

"No."

"Yes."

"No." This was more like them, she thought. Petty, back-and-forth disputing.

"But you want to know!" Dylan knew he would win this, and despite how awful it would be to finally admit to everything that he had never told her, he wanted to get it out in the open. "I know you, you like to know things and to be in control." This was exactly what he had robbed her of, all those years ago. The loss of that control had contributed massively to the freefall of their marriage, he knew. She had seen him drink to kingdom come, again and again in his own sick quest for control, with no idea __why.__ He hadn't even reached the role of alcohol in all of this, yet — that really would be a painful confession.

Dylan leaned forward and put his mug down on the table in front of them. When he sat back, he linked his hands on his knees. They were tingling with pins and needles: somewhere along the line his anxiety had risen considerably and he must have started gradually hyperventilating. At least this was something that Sam could not see, while his rough wringing of his hands was an all-too-visible marker of his mental state.

Sam put her mug down too. At least in doing so, she could not see his mental distress becoming more apparent. She stared at the mug, white with red stripes, deep in thought. They were yin and yang once more: she had all the questions while he held all the answers. Whether she wanted to know __all__ the answers was something else entirely. But with the small amount of knowledge she had gained so far, it seemed that most of their time acquainted was now one massive question.

She gave in to her curiosity. Everything that she named, he nodded. It all made so much sickening sense now. The tapping, the checking, the symmetry. The __obsessively__ tidy house when she returned from deployment. There were others that she was more cautious to ask about, but she knew that she had to.

"Every time I was about to deploy, you would never sleep," she said carefully.

Dylan hummed in agreement.

"You always said it was the coffee, you always blamed it on something else. Was that…"

"Yes." He bit the edge of his lip, nearly at the corner of his mouth. "I couldn't sleep, because… it sounds rather feeble, but because my brain was too loud. I don't know how much you know of OCD, but I would have… thoughts. About you, not coming home, and it being my fault."

"Dylan," said Sam, "if anything had happened to me out there, it would have been nothing to do with you. You couldn't have changed it, or done anything to affect the outcome."

" _ _I know that,__ " Dylan countered. "I know that I had no control. I know that it was irrational and ridiculous, and whatever other adjectives you want to attach to it. Rationality is not a major symptom of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder." It came out quite bitterly, and he wondered whether he should apologise. He had asked her here to help, perhaps he should not belittle and criticise her. It was a lot of information to give her and expect her to assimilate, all in one go.

Sam persevered, although her next question was an even more uncomfortable one. "When I left the house in Oxford, I spent a long time packing a bag. In the very back of my wardrobe, there was a box of things, and they made me so angry because they just seemed so significant, and you'd hidden them all away. Why did you keep them at all? There was nothing left of us."

Dylan's breath caught in his throat. His mouth was suddenly very dry: it was hard to form words and push them out, nearly impossible. He swallowed with great effort. "I tried so many times to get rid of it. You don't understand —"

"— I'm trying to!"

"Right." Dylan looked down at his hands, opening and closing them in tight fists, attempting to get his circulation moving better and ease the pins and needles. "I just couldn't. I tried, I really did."

Sam could tell that he was holding back, and she wished that he could just be brave enough to say exactly what was on his mind. Granted, it had been a long time, but she suspected that some things were exactly as relevant as they had been in 2011. If he had been in so much mental turmoil for all this time, why had she never noticed?

She sighed, sitting back on the sofa and staring up at the ceiling before looking back at Dylan. "I'm sorry," she said as she looked at him sadly. "All of this, that you're now telling me is your OCD (and I believe you, because if nothing else I still trust your word, rightly or wrongly), I just thought that all of that was the way you were."

"Well, in a way, it was. Is. I __am__ like that. It just happens to be because of __that__ , too."

"It doesn't excuse that fact that I never asked."

"I don't think I would have said anything, even if you had," Dylan said. "I don't think I knew how. I barely know __now,__ this is all such a stab in the pitch black darkness. Like I said, I think I've always had it; nothing ever made it go away."

"For someone who doesn't know what to say, you're doing quite well at explaining it to me," said Sam. For now, she strategically ignored his comment that 'nothing' made the OCD less intense. She didn't yet know how to question the significance of the whiskey bottle on the kitchen table, that he clearly thought she couldn't see his stolen glances towards. "I'm —" She didn't want this to come out wrong, there was potential for her to sound far too flippant. "I'm glad that you called me tonight — not glad that you feel like this, obviously. I'm not a monster, as much as I may have acted like one previously. I'm just… I'm trying to say that I'm pleased you still trust me."

Dylan shifted uncomfortably. Perhaps it had been subconscious trust that had made him call her: there was certainly a depth of history between them which had eliminated a need for some elements of explanation. But more pressing, this evening, had been desperation, a knowledge that he had no-one else to call.

A possible truth suddenly dawned on Sam, that made her blood run cold. "How many people know about this?" she asked, fearful of his answer. "Please, don't tell me that you've fought your mental health for this long, by yourself."

It was interesting to Dylan, that she chose to call it a fight. She wasn't wrong, but it was weirdly as though she spoke from a position of experience. He was distracted from pursuing this line of thought, however, by the unpleasant tingling in his palms and cheeks becoming more intense. This was accompanied by his mouth beginning to feel heavy: speech was becoming more laborious and difficult. It had been a long time since Dylan had suffered a panic attack; he hoped strongly that he wasn't heading for another one, now. He tried to force his mind away from the inundation of dread, although recalling the select number of people who were in the know about his OCD was not an altogether sunnier picture.

"Lily knows. That was coincidental, really — she was one of many who saw things go __very__ wrong, a while back, and she happened to be present more recently, when…" He broke off, and bit the skin around his left thumbnail although it was already ragged. "When I nearly acted on a particularly unsafe compulsion." He shuddered as he remembered it in sharp focus. The strong citrus washing up liquid, the scaldingly hot running water, Lily pushing herself past him in her need to save him from himself. "Um, you've met David, haven't you?" Dylan went on. "Nurse, very very quiet, saviour of lost souls. He… is aware. But I did something exceeding the far reaches of stupid, and pushed him away."

Sam coughed, roughly clearing her throat to block her urge to tell Dylan that he was good at pushing people away. Already, it was becoming clear that Dylan didn't have a proper, or any, support system around him. No wonder, then, that he had resorted to calling her, when he had no-one else to catch him when he fell. "Anyone else?"

His third and final person was one whose knowledge of this situation was better than anyone else's. Dylan wasn't entirely sure whether disclosing her name to Sam would be yet another possible offence. But, he supposed, Sam had taken everything else fairly well, there was no reason to believe that this would be the straw that broke the camel's back. Briefly, there had been a strange, uncomfortable dynamic between the three of them, Sam and Zoe particularly, but it had eventually faded. And of course, after he had departed Holby the first time, Sam had stayed and he had it on fair authority that they had got on like a house on fire.

"Zoe knew," he said at last. "She was there, and there __for me,__ the last time I went crazy." He had to look away from Sam at that point; there was no way she would approve of his choice of words. Whether she approved of his choice of confidante was a moot point now.

But it wasn't Dylan's frank assessment of what sounded like a breakdown, which bothered Sam. He had never been one to mince words so it did not shock her that he chose to use the word 'crazy.' What did shock her was the knowledge that he would not say something that he didn't mean. She trusted his word, so whatever had happened, it must have been bad. Still, she couldn't help herself trying to negate it, until he tilted his chin down, momentarily closed his eyes, and then looked seriously back up at her. "I don't think you - oh…" He wouldn't want to tell her, but she had to ask. "How bad was it?"

 _ _Only a little worse than right now,__ Dylan's internal monologue said loudly. His palms had clammed up now too, and he had to swallow a few times to free up his chokingly dry mouth. But outwardly, he shrugged. "Bad enough," he said gruffly, not wishing to dwell too heavily upon it. He picked up his mug and drank some more coffee.

The effect on his brain was immediate. Much like a science experiment in which too many batteries make a light bulb first glow too brightly, then promptly blow, his level of panic increased under the fuel of caffeine. He tried to breathe levelly to stave off an explosion, although his shoulders started heaving with the effort.

"Dylan, are you okay?" It was a stupid question. Obviously, he was not okay. "Look, we don't have to talk about __all__ of this now. I don't want to patronise you and say that you've done well to get this far, but —"

"I'm fine," Dylan said firmly, pushing out a long breath in one last-ditch attempt to claw back control. Everything still felt erratic and unstable, but he had to spit out his last few words, she had to know that the very worst of him during their marriage had not been all her fault. "I called you tonight and you probably thought I was drunk already — I know you thought I was drunk when I swore — but it's been years and I have to finally tell you the truth about the elephant in the room."

Sam frowned; he was not fine, and with each word that tumbled helter-skelter from his lips it was becoming more and more clear. "We really do not have to do this tonight. I think you've gone far enough, I can live one more night without knowing this, when it's obviously tearing you apart."

"Forgive me, but it's been tearing me apart for about ten years, and you might be able to live one more night but I don't think I can! I've lost control, Sam, and I didn't want to be that blunt with you because I still—" He stopped himself short of admitting quite what he felt. "I don't want to hurt you and I didn't want to suddenly up-end everything that you thought about what happened to us. But if I don't get this out of my head tonight, I don't trust myself not to go over the edge and drink — drink so far to oblivion that — that —"

"Alright, don't say it," Sam said, trying to keep herself calm. Her heart was beating faster now, in part from his declaration that he still cared and in larger part due to his agitation escalating.

Dylan put his hands on either side of his face, blinkering his view to a narrowed tunnel. "I suppose you thought that I drank because I couldn't cope with you being away. And I couldn't, it never got easier and I never stopped missing you, but the drinking wasn't directly linked to that. It started as something c-conscious, a clear decision because I knew I could use it to block out whatever thoughts were so loud in my brain that I couldn't stop myself following their lead. And then I couldn't stop, it was too regular, I needed it too much. For a while I was okay: when we were back in Holby together, I was fine, more or less. I wasn't drinking. When I first came back here again, with Zoe, I really was fine. I thought I had kicked it all. The OCD came back properly a couple of years ago, and at the start of this summer, I couldn't cope. There was a doctor killed here, outside the hospital —"

"Caleb Knight," they said together. Dylan looked at Sam in surprise, the first time he'd been able to look her in the eye since his messy speech had begun.

"I do watch the news, Dylan. He was everywhere."

Dylan looked back down at his unsteady hands. "I found him, bleeding out in the rain. I told him I wouldn't let him die! I let him down; it was my fault. He had a brother, he was __Ethan's brother__ , and I couldn't even keep him alive long enough for him to say goodbye. It was my fault," he repeated, standing up with his hands on the back of his neck. "I couldn't control what was happening outside or inside my head, and then I couldn't control how much I was drinking to try and blank it all out."

Sam stood up too, although she did so calmly and carefully. Knowing that Dylan's eyes were on her, she walked across to the kitchen table and picked up the bottle.

"I'm going to put this outside the door," she said measuredly. "You can decide how we deal with it, later, but right now you do not need the added pressure of looking at it and knowing that it's right there."

She did as she said she would, standing the bottle on the doorstep so that it was out of sight. The cold draught that slipped around the door was bitter.

"You should sit down," she said, walking back to him. He did not sit. "You don't have to deal with this on your own, you know? I'm here. I think you should… I want you to talk to someone better than me, get some help for everything that's bothering you. There are ways to make it stop."

Once again, Dylan wondered why she could say with such confidence that there was a way to make it stop. But he couldn't focus on that when out of the blue, he was furious with her for the very suggestion. "Oh, you __want__ me to get 'help'? No. If I talk, I'll be arrested and struck off, not necessarily in that order. I don't know anymore, which one bothers me most, but I deserve both of them!" He shivered, the after-effect of the cold draught from outside, even though his blood was being boiled by blind panic. An elevated heartbeat was pushing the adrenaline around his body faster and faster.

"You don't deserve either, good god, Dylan! No-one's going to arrest you and haul you up in front of the GMC for having OCD!"

"But they might, for me being an alcoholic doctor who has drunk alcohol not only on hospital premises but while on shift! And what… about smuggling a refugee __child__ into the country? That's — firmly in — arrest — territory — isn't — it?" That was it. It was all out now, and his words were stilted and painful to hear and say. His breaths were sharp and he could see flickering stars in the corners of his vision.

Collapsing inwards. That was how the panic felt, and how Dylan felt as he stumbled away from Sam until he was behind the bathroom door, sitting against it so he couldn't be disturbed. He was breathing with intense force, but each shallow breath just made his head spin more. He'd said to Sam that he had lost control of his drinking, which was true, but now he had lost control of everything else too. There was little more symbolic of defeat than a grown adult sitting on the floor, hugging knees tightly to chest, wishing everything would just __stop.  
__

* * *

"Dylan?"

Her voice was slightly muffled by the door, but she was there, right outside. He had thought that her presence in this situation could only serve to make it worse, but it was so bad anyway that she __couldn't__ make it any worse. If anything, knowing that Sam was there, of all people, made it a little easier. But he couldn't tell her that. He couldn't tell her anything, because the part of his brain which controlled speech was burning with the fiery anguish of panic.

"Are you okay?"

She sounded uncertain, even a little worried. He didn't like that he was doing this to her, after all that had been said, with such deep-running trust, this evening. But his mouth was dry and completely paralysed by irrational fear. He couldn't say a word. He tried to concentrate on making his breaths out a little longer, but with the panic wave still cresting, this was difficult.

"Alright," she said, the sound of her voice coming closer to him as though she was sitting on the other side of the door, level with him. "Dylan, I don't know what to say. Just… if you're not going to speak — if you can't — just tap on the door or something, so I at least know you're conscious!"

At the mercy of his heaving breaths, Dylan lifted his right hand and tapped his knuckles on the door, just above the top of his head.

On the other side of the door, Sam breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank you," she said, lifting her head and sitting with a straight back against the door. "I'm not going anywhere." She strained her ears and caught the sound of breaths, too shallow and too close. Sam winced. She had seen panic attacks before, obviously. But to imagine Dylan suffering like that… she didn't like it one bit.

And at last, she realised why she disliked it so much. Even after everything that had happened, he was still __her Dylan.__ Even in the icy grip of panic and addiction, he was still himself. She had loved him for all of that gruffness and dark humour, once.

* * *

On Dylan's side of the door, the wave of panic was subsiding. He was still weak, his heart was still beating too quickly, but the fear had given way to pins and needles again. They were in his face and hands (the remnant of hyperventilation) but in his brain too, a sensation which he knew he'd never be able to explain.

"Are you still there?" he asked, hoping his voice was strong enough to permeate the closed door. He was glad that he was not prone to showing embarrassment through the colouring of his cheeks, but this meant that he felt the internal shame more intensely.

"Of course I am," came her reply. "Will you come out, now?" Sam stood up, and took a step backwards, away from the door. She heard no response, and wondered if she had any soothing words left which might coax him out. But just when she'd turned to head back and wait for him on the sofa, she heard the door click and open.

Looking at Dylan now was like looking at a person she didn't recognise. He looked pale and worn out; panic could do that to a person, she knew, but that knowledge didn't make it easier to see Dylan like this. He leaned on the doorframe.

"I can't go on like this, Sam," he said, deeply upset.

Sam's eyebrows furrowed in concern. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, __I can't go on like this.__ There's too much in my head, even now, and I can't handle it anymore."

She clasped her hands in front of her. She had thought that they were done, that his panic was just a reaction to everything finally spilling out into the open. How could there possibly be more? Unless… All of her assumptions about him had been proved wrong this evening, so perhaps there was room left for another.

He followed her back towards the sofa but didn't sit, while she did. He looked down at her and took a breath. "You've been…" He closed his eyes. "You've been very kind to me tonight, and I appreciate it a lot. It's almost like… old times." He opened his eyes; that was far harder to say than what he was about to. "I just can't… accept it, that's all. I've known for so long that you hate me, you've not been able to stand the sight of me, since I stupidly said that everything was going to be okay. I mean when you were — when we —"

"The miscarriage," Sam said quietly. She thought about it often, but she hadn't thought of the specific moment that was tormenting Dylan, in years. At one time, she really had despised his words and his reaction to the whole ordeal. But while time had not healed the trauma of losing their baby, it certainly had changed her thoughts about her ex-husband. "Dylan, please sit down. I can't fix much tonight, but I can fix this. Please let me."

He sat down where he had before, and froze when she shuffled closer to him. He looked down at his lap, where his hands were wringing once more. "You hated me."

"Yes," said Sam, deciding the bluntness was necessary and would get through to him better than being overly careful. "I did. Past tense. I couldn't stand it, __at the time,__ that you'd had the gall to look me in the eye when —" She paused, the raw words momentarily drying up. She pressed the palms of her hands to the tops of her knees. "When you knew that our baby was dying inside me, and you could tell me that it was going to be alright. But I don't hold it against you anymore. What else could you have said? You said what you had to, to make me feel a little less terrified. I was young, and I'd never felt so lost." She looked at his hands, then reached for them with her own. She held his hands apart from each other, getting his attention as well as interrupting the anxious action. "I promise you, I had bigger things on my mind. I've long since forgiven you for that."

"Can you forgive me for it being my fault?" The words were out before he could stop them. Maybe he should have followed them with some kind of explanation, that part of him didn't really believe that he had caused it. But a far larger part still blamed himself, so his declaration of guilt was not inaccurate.

"None of it was your fault, Dylan. You didn't make it happen. I hope there's a bit of you left that sees the absolute untruths that your OCD tries to make you believe. You've got to find a way to move past this assumption that you're an all-powerful entity."

He made a non-committal sound, and she wished he would truly hear what she was saying.

"What chance did I have, of a viable pregnancy, with all the stress of being in Afghanistan?"

Dylan's shoulders sagged. There was a part of him which wanted to drag his hands free of Sam's and press his knuckles into his eyes. But instead, he tightly held her hands, feeling the proximity which they hadn't had in years. A kind of energy was flowing between them with finally sharing how they felt about everything that had happened. Their relationship had been in black and white for so long, but now it was flooded with colour once more. "How many times did you have to say that to yourself, before you believed it?" he asked hollowly.

Sam let out an uneven sigh, upset because it was all so messy. "Every day, for about three years. Sometimes more than once a day. I still have to remind myself, sometimes."

"Will I believe it too, do you think?"

Silence. And then Sam erased any space left between them: she turned slightly, until her left knee touched his right, and held his hands delicately, half expecting him to shake her off. But he didn't, and somehow in an instant they were confronting a grief that neither of them had tackled since before the breakdown of their marriage. Their foreheads were touching with their hands tenderly clasped together. They both wanted things to be so different.

"I hope so, Grumpy. For your sake and mine, I really hope so."

It had been almost eight years. Over two and half thousand days. Everything had changed, and yes some things were exactly the same.


	15. Chapter 15

Holby, December 2017

Sam awoke with the late sunrise, images of the night before still running amok in her head. She wished she could have slept for longer: last night had been so emotionally intense that to sleep it all off could easily take about four years. She had left the boat after midnight, after the difficult task of gauging whether she could safely leave Dylan by himself.

* * *

 _"_ _ _Will you be alright?" she asked, standing on the quayside and looking down at Dylan, who stood in his doorway. He already looked a little lost, and she hadn't even left him yet. The night was bitterly cold; Sam folded her arms across her chest in an attempt to keep warm, but none of that really mattered when she was checking that Dylan was okay.__

 _ _He shrugged. "What can I do, but attempt to stay on the rails of sanity?"__

 _ _Sam was dumbfounded by this response and his dry delivery. "What am I supposed to say to that?" she retorted. It was probably a good things that he could speak with such easy derision. But she couldn't help hearing a cry for help in his words, too. This was not a problem to be solved by one night of talking.__

 _"_ _ _I believe you're meant to express disgust towards my blasé attitude to what happened this evening, tell me off for worrying you even more, and then point out that my sanity is most likely not in question—" He was cut off by Sam, who hopped down off the quayside and back onto the boat, to throw her arms around him. Dylan froze. He didn't know what to do: more than anything, he wanted to hug her back because having her this close to him again felt wonderful. She'd made such a difference tonight, and if he didn't do something soon, she would think that he didn't care. And oh God, he cared. So he relaxed, and hugged her back, ignoring the now considerably smaller part of his brain which still protested that this was a terrible idea because they didn't love each other anymore.__

 _ _Perhaps they didn't 'love' each other anymore. But not hating each other anymore was acceptable too. Maybe they tolerated, or even liked each other. This closeness, physical and emotional, was something they hadn't had in years.__

 _ _I think you'll be alright, tonight," Sam said, straightening up at last and seeming to mentally brush herself down. "And if you're not, you still have my number. Tonight, tomorrow, whatever."__

 _ _Dylan nodded. "Thank you, Sam."__

 _ _Hearing him say her name genuinely and with great care, when she had seen him in such a distressed state not so long ago, felt good to Sam.__

* * *

It was Sam's day off, and she wanted dearly to go back to sleep. But she was awake now and her morning routine had to begin. She could do this physio without thinking about it now; she'd done it for so long that it was ingrained in her psyche. Although, this familiarity meant she had to work hard not to be complacent. Every morning was as important as the hundreds of others that had come before. But as it was winter, there was extra care that she had to take over her shoulder. The muscles were stiff and had to be stretched, like always, but the winter brought its own challenges to the damaged skin. After she had taken care of the muscles, Sam craned her neck in the mirror, inspecting the scar that started at the top of her left shoulder and snaked its ugly tear downwards in an almost diagonal line towards her spine. It ended, messily, just above the back of her bra. The skin was puckered, discoloured, and desperately dry. The worst of the dryness was near the bottom: no matter how much effort she put in, it was impossible to reach it with moisturiser.

By the time she had finished, she really was awake and sleep was completely out of the question. Sam made herself a cup of coffee and returned to bed with a book. She couldn't concentrate though: her minds was stuck on Dylan. With the bridges they had built last night, she wondered how she would ever break it to him that she'd been injured so badly in Afghanistan and never told him about it.

* * *

Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham, September 2011

"You should make a full recovery," the doctor said calmly. "I dare say any ED in the country would fall over themselves to have a doctor with your experience of trauma medicine in the field. But you will not be cleared to deploy again."

Sam's ears started to ring, blocking out all external sounds. She wished she could blame that on damage sustained in the blast, or the impact on her eardrums of the close range shot which had now ended her army career. But the truth of the matter was that she was probably in pretty deep shock, only worsened by this recent development. She stared straight ahead, wishing that she felt numb instead because then at least she would have none of the deep, sharp pain in her shoulder. Her left arm was strapped up securely and would be for a while, thanks to a Taliban sniper. Sam knew that she was lucky to be alive, but she could not mask her disappointment that she had been so significantly injured to put an end to her days as an army medic.

* * *

"Major Nicholls?"

Sam turned her head stiffly to look at the nurse who was speaking. She seemed only to be about twenty years old — perhaps she was on a placement and had been ordered over here to speak to her, the grumpiest patient on the ward, because no-one else wanted to push her for a response.

"This is highly unusual, but your next-of-kin details are missing. Is there anyone we can call for you, to notify them of what's happened?"

Sam tried to sit up properly, but this was too painful. She gritted her teeth to speak. "No," she said firmly.

The nurse, actually a little older and more experienced than Sam gave her credit for, glanced quickly at her patient's left hand. There was a tell-tale white, untanned patch of skin at the base of her ring finger. All of the married soldiers had one; it was like a tattoo etched only on those who spent extended periods under the scorching middle-eastern sun, far away from their other halves. Sadly, many of them had their rings cut off to aid with swift treatment (although, with perspective, this was only an upsetting detail to an outsider looking in; better to be home alive, minus a physical marker of love, than not to return home alive at all.)

"But your husband," the nurse went on, "he won't even know that you're back in the country, surely —"

"—My husband is absolutely none of your concern," Sam said sharply. She wanted to storm out of this room, out of this ward, out of this hospital, away from everything. She shouldn't be taking out her fury on this nurse, who hadn't known any better but was now hurrying away, deeply embarrassed.

Sam wasn't sure exactly who her fury was for. Dylan, obviously, because if he __had__ still been her next-of-kin, then he would have answered the call drunk, or turned up here with it still on his breath. If he hadn't chosen such a cowardly coping mechanism for her being away, she would have still more-or-less happily called him her husband. But she wasn't faultless, either — no matter how much she told herself that Dylan had driven her to the affair with Corporal Dean, she had still allowed herself to get carried away with it all and actually go through with it.

Alone in her room, she wanted to curl up in a ball and sleep until all of this was over. All of that was out of the question: not only was she physically unable to make her body do that, the pain of simply being awake meant sleep would not be as easy as she would like. Sam reflexively reached for the chain around her neck, in the hope of her fingertips finding the smooth silver 'S' which had been a present from Dylan, years ago. It had always been anaction of comfort, to hold it absently between the pads of a finger and thumb. But the 'S' was not there, of course: it had been left behind in the house in Oxford. A much cheaper chain suspended her engagement and wedding rings around her neck now; it wouldn't be right to wear them on her hand anymore, but that didn't mean she wantedrid of them entirely. She intermittently hated him — he was her husband on paper only — but she wouldn't and could not forget him.

* * *

Catterick, September 2011

It had been a short notice, spur of the moment decision, to move back up to Yorkshire. The surgery had needed another GP, in replacement of the mother of three whose husband had been stationed in Germany, meaning their family had uprooted and moved across western Europe to stay with him.

The change suited him, on the whole. He was no longer living on the patch, so the only gossip to contend with was that of patients who recognised him and liked to speculate the reason behind his return. The life of a country GP was idyllic in comparison with trauma work at King's or even the buzz of the lively A&E department in Oxford. Of course, it would be better if he wasn't practically alone. Dervla loved Catterick with all its smells, grass and sheep, but she was no match really for the brief, gloriously happy times he had shared with Sam here. It was bittersweet to be back, although everything seemed bittersweet through the uncomfortable lens of an unceasing hangover.

Even though he didn't live on the patch anymore, army life was all around, completely inescapable. Every flash of blonde hair had him half-believing, however briefly, that she was here, and not in Afghanistan after all. He had no idea of her deployment date, her leave, or her return date. Perhaps if he hadn't drunk to blackout so many times, he might have recalled it all. She could be anywhere in the world, she could be injured and inhospital somewhere. She might even be dead, and he might have been too drunk to remember finding out. At one time it had been an easily-dismissable thought, but these days, with his OCD running riot at full tilt, he often couldn't shake the vivid imaginings of a flag-draped coffin returning to Brize Norton with her name on it. It was the sort of thing which woke him up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, gasping for a breath which he could never quite catch. Sometimes it took his breath away during the day too. He couldn't make himself believe that he was supposed to be furious with her forcheating, when he was terrified that she was no longer alive. Day by day, he was turning a little more bitter towards her, which made it all the worse on the mornings when he woke up in a daze, still thinking she lay beside him.

* * *

Holby, Christmas week 2017

Dylan's return to work was completely unhistoric. It was as though he'd never left, which was a better reception than he could have hoped for. He had been afraid of a fuss, of people asking questions he didn't want to or couldn't answer.

Even Ethan in his precarious position as Clinical Lead, did not go to the lengths his predecessor would have done, for which Dylan was very grateful.

"Morning, Dylan," he said, hoping he didn't sound as uncertain as he felt. Being in charge didn't fit him well at all, there was no longer anyone in the department above him who could prove how things were meant to be done.

Dylan nodded in response; he really didn't want to be drawn into an agonising conversation to assess his wellbeing and readiness to return.

"We'll talk at the end of the shift, okay?"

"Oh," Dylan said, surprised. "Yes, of course." It was only half a degree different to a normal day. Relief swept through him as he realised the difficult explanation of his mental state and sobriety. By the time this shift ended, it would be like he'd never left at all and he would be able to easily brush off any remaining concern.

* * *

Christmas was coming, alright. There was a hospital-issue, artificial tree in the staffroom, festooned with fairy lights, tinsel and baubles. The radio station broadcasting into reception seemed have lost all concept of records which had never appeared on a Christmas compilation album. The 'classics' were played multiple times a day; fine for patients who were in and out in a few hours, but eye-rollingly unpleasant for the staff in the ED all day. Or perhaps this was just the case for Dylan, who was completely living up to Sam's nickname for him.

He found himself leaving resus at the same time as her and without giving it a thought, he struck up a conversation with her, while at the same time his face made an expression of mild disgust at the choice of festive track.

"If I hear Slade one more time, I'll —"

"— You'll what?" Sam challenged, happy to hear that he was back on his usual form. "Turn green and steal Christmas?"

"Your allusions to the Grinch do not fall on deaf ears, Samantha," he replied drily. "I __was__ paying attention, mostly, when you made me sit through that film."

"Thank you'll recognise your perfect equivalence." Sam rolled her eyes with a half smile on her lips. "You even have an unquestioningly loyal dog."

* * *

From his view at his desk, Ethan wondered what had changed. They looked at ease in each other's company; Sam was smiling at Dylan in a way he'd never seen before, from anyone.

But there were more pressing things to consider. The blog was still active, furious and scathing. It got worse every time, and he knew he should stop reading it but he couldn't. It was as though the blogger knew each time he began to feel slightly more secure in this position, and chose precisely these moments to attack once more. The local presswere all over it, hovering for each new entry to publicise it even more widely. It felt as though the whole county was reading it and adding their own negative points of view to fuel the out-of-control fire. Worse still, in the lastweek this blog had attracted the attention of the national press. Something had to give, someone in this department was out to get them all in a whole heap of trouble, and surely, surely, at some point soon they would trip themselves up and reveal themselves.

* * *

The shift passed without event, and even the much-dreaded conversation with Ethan was not as bad as Dylan had anticipated.

He was collecting his belongings and preparing to leave the ED when the staffroom door swung open. Dylan turned to see who it was, then turned back to his locker.

"You don't have to keep looking out for me," he said, unsure whether to be embarrassed, pleased, or annoyed.

"I know," Sam replied, shrugging his words off easily. "Are you okay, then?" she persevered.

Dylan closed his locker and turned slowly around. "Yes. Nothing I can't keep a lid on." It was good to be able to say that, and mean it too. "It should only get easier now, with no more excruciating examinations of my wellbeing by our esteemed Clinical Lead."

"You know that he's just ticking a box, he has to say __something.__ "

He had to skirt over this statement carefully. The strange thing about Ethan being in charge was that it was far more obvious when he genuinely cared. And the conversation they had had a short while ago had not felt like a box-ticking exercise. "I suppose." He strained his ears, just about hearing the music that was playing outside. "Oh, for goodness' sake, not __again!"__

Sam knew that he was trying to change the subject and move attention off of himself. She wanted to say something meaningful, that would break through his gruff exterior and make him listen to her properly. Even after all their talking on the boat, and the brief conversations between then and now, there remained things left unsaid. But if both being doctors had put paid to opportunities to talk, it was much worse now they were a doctor and a paramedic. As she opened her mouth to speak, words began pouring out of her walkie-talkie. She sighed, listening closely. "3006 to control, received," she said calmly. "I'll see you tomorrow, Dylan."

He nodded.

Sam hesitated. She knew she had to go. "Look, I know that I don't __have to__ check if you're okay. I'm not doing it to be a nuisance."

Dylan balked at the suggestion that he'd seen her as anything like that. "I didn't think for a second —"

"I'm doing it because I want to." She really did have to go; she disappeared from the room before saying anything else.

Dylan stood, stunned momentarily. What was he supposed to do with that information?

* * *

A few days later, Dylan was finishing quite the strangest night shift he'd ever done. He'd seen a few odd ones in his time, but normally it was to do with patients and unusual cases, not the staff. But all night, the atmosphere in the ED had been atypical, almost statically-charged. There had been whisperings that __someone__ was 'for it' over the blog, at last. Unfortunately, Dylan had never been in the right place at the right time to hear the specific name which was being batted around.

He'd read the blog, of course. Everyone had, and not exclusively here, either. He couldn't deny that he had admired the tenacity of some of the claims. Some of it was perfectly true, but no-one had had the guts to come out with it in public. Conversations between colleagues, however, were very different from a public blog post which had sky-rocketed in popularity over the last two months or so. As the blogger had continued to air their views, Dylan's opinion of it all had soured considerably. It had gone too far now, even coming from him, who could usually be trusted to come out with some more controversial comments. It had bordered on personal weeks ago, and now it was almost a vendetta. He wondered whether the blogger really thought all of these things they were publishing, or whether they had been swept away with the adrenaline and energy surrounding any public discourse about the NHS.

With the sheer volume of posts which were now live, it should have been easy to work out who was writing. While the blog never breached patient confidentiality, there were passages which easily attributed the author to specific shifts, or happenings within shifts. But this writer was clever: nothing mentioned had involved only one member of the ED team. And different groups of the staff were involved in each described incident, so it was unlikely to be a conglomerate of writers. Whoever it was, was extremely observant, and brave, bordering on unintelligently so.

All night long, there were discussions starting like off-shoots of a wildfire, no doubt fuelled by the fact that Ethan was not on the night shift, so could not possibly overhear. Strangely, to Dylan at least, there was a conspicuous absence from every such conversation. Alicia, who would always be a major voice on topics such as this, the prediction of a downfall, was quiet or not present at all. Perhaps it was his night-wearied mind playing tricks on him, but he was sure he'd overheard her saying something that could have been construed as defence of the blogger. But despite her tendency to gossip, he'd never had reason to believe she'd be a force for anything other than good in the department. She worked hard, she did as she was told, and she wasn't a bad doctor at all. Inexperienced perhaps, but that was fading with time too. Above all, she was __friends__ with Ethan; they'd been more than friends at one point, too.

Dylan had never had reason to question his judgements of character before, so he immediately discounted his suspicion that Alicia could have written all those things.

* * *

When Lily arrived for work at quarter to seven, it was the first time her path and Dylan's had crossed since his return to the ED. She headed straight for the staffroom, and it was a strange relief to see him. He seemed tired (attributable to the night shift he'd just finished) but no different to normal, leaning against the sink with a large cup of coffee.

"Morning," she said brightly.

He nodded in reply.

She double-checked that they were alone before speaking again. "Are you… alright?"

"Alright?" Dylan raised one eyebrow. That was a very broad and difficult question. "Why?"

Lily rolled her eyes. He did not make easy to be nice to him, sometimes. "Because I care, whether or not you're alright! That may come as a shock to you, but there it is." Her tone nearly matched his.

"I would have thought you'd have forgotten all about me, by now," he said, thinking aloud.

"I should think anyone would be hard pressed to forget you." Lily pulled the hair-tie from around her wrist and deftly put her hair up into a neat ponytail, before reaching into her locker for her stethoscope. "And you still haven't answered my question." She was still internally unimpressed that Dylan's opinion of himself was low enough that he thought people would just forget him. Or perhaps there were so few people holding space in her mind that she honestly couldn't forget him, even if she had tried to.

"I'm better than I was," he replied honestly. Even though they were alone, it was hard to say this aloud. "I haven't had compulsions like the one that you saw. There have been a fair few, but not… not bad ones." He paused. "And I suppose I owe you an apology, owing from when I walked out of the ED and practically shouted my status as an alcoholic at you. That wasn't very fair."

"Maybe not, but it's of no consequence now, now that I know you're relatively okay."

Dylan bit his lip. "I'd like to be able to say 'recovering alcoholic', but I'm not sure I qualify for that."

"Say it," Lily said, shrugging. "If you want to say it, then say it. Words are powerful. I hate to put on the persona of a perky motivational speaker, but take it as your own, say it, keep it."

"Someone's been doing their research," Dylan returned.

Lily looked down at the floor for a second, embarrassed.

"No, I don't mean to sound so mean, I'm sorry." Damn it, he'd changed the pitch of a perfectly good conversation. "I do appreciate you making the effort, Lily, really. Thank you." He really needed to re-learn to think things through before they came out of his mouth.

"You're welcome," said Lily, a little stiffly. "I need to get to work."

"Lily, wait, I —" He hadn't even told Sam about this, although she possibly could have worked it out for herself. "I've been sober for eleven days."

Lily's demeanour changed. "Wow," she sounded genuinely pleased, and the hurt he had caused seemed to have dissipated. "I will admit, I don't know the appropriate response to that, but I am happy for you. Well done." She smiled nervously, hoping she had said the right thing.

* * *

Sam and Iain walked through the ED with matching Starbucks Christmas cups. It was early in the morning, but they were already cheerfully singing Christmas songs. Lily froze in the doorway of the staffroom, before pushing herself out and pretending she couldn't feel anything in response to seeing them.

Dylan, who stood just behind Lily, was about to quietly mention that he was not still at war with Sam, and that actually they were very much back on speaking terms.

Lily was about to turn and walk as far from them as she could get.

But they were both caught off guard, as was everybody else, by a sudden explosion from Ethan's office.

"Get out of my office!" he shouted, and a second later, Alicia meekly stepped out of the door, her face scarlet. There were tears of regret and remorse in the corners of her eyes, and while she knew everyone was watching her, she locked her eyes on the front doors and walked straight out.

There was a ringing silence in the department. Ethan was mild-mannered, generally kind, careful, a little awkward, and prone to taking things very much to heart. He was not angry or explosive, and few people had ever heard him even raise his voice. Everyone was stunned, and the silence was only broken by the ringing of the red phone, which seemed to remind everyone that they were alive and the shift was still ongoing. The ED returned to normal, with a noted exclusion zone around the Clinical Lead's office.

* * *

Lily knocked anxiously on Ethan's door. She didn't know if she was doing the right thing, or even if she was welcome, but she was drawn to him. While everyone else avoided him, she needed to help him if she could. He looked up from his desk, building up a façade that melted away when he saw who was knocking. He nodded sadly, allowing her to enter.

She closed the door behind her at once, and stood in front of the desk. She pulled on her stethoscope around her neck, wishing the words would come a bit quicker. "I suppose I don't really need to ask, but I — I can't believe it. Was it her, all along?"

"Yep," Ethan said. His face was pale, as though he was in shock from it all, or perhaps suffering the ill-effects of having finally let his guard down to shout so ferociously. "I had a call from Jac Naylor about an hour ago, saying she'd worked out who had written the blog. All night it's been spreading around the hospital that Rash was writing all that stuff, that he matched all the cases and incidents described."

Lily frowned. "First of all, I'm sure that was a perfectly terrible six o'clock wake up call."

"You can say that again."

"And secondly, there was no way. Rash isn't like that, he's —" But she had to stop. Alicia wasn't 'like that' either, whatever 'that' quality was, that made someone capable of such savage blogging.

"So I get here this morning and the first person I see is Alicia, who came in here with a suddenly guilty conscience. Couldn't let Rash take the rap for what she'd done."

Lily let out a breath. She couldn't take it all in. It was all over. In intense ED fashion, it was all over.

"Where was that guilty conscience when I was taking all of that pressure from upstairs, from the newspapers, from journalists trying to get hold of me at every hour of the day for their own slant on the horrors of our ED?" he spat bitterly. "But as soon as someone else is in trouble, oh yes, then she comes crying to me saying she never meant it to go so far."

Lily sat down on the sofa at the side of the office. "Ethan, I know you're upset, but you need to stop. I know, __I know,__ this is a horrible, horrible ordeal. I want you to get all of this off your chest as much as you don't want it in your head any more. But you're still Clinical Lead. You still have to lead, and spilling every little detail is not holding up your professionalism. I'm really sorry, but I don't want you to get in any trouble yourself. You've got enough on your plate as it is."

Ethan sighed, then came over to sit next to her. "I know. I don't know whether I should say 'thank you' or 'sorry'."

"Say neither," Lily replied. "I wish there had been a better ending to all of this. I don't know what that better ending would have been, but this is crushing you, I can see it."

Ethan was sitting with his elbows on his knees, and his head in his hands. "I trusted her, Lily," he mumbled. "I've been so stupid."

Lily shook her head. "No, you haven't. You couldn't be stupid if you tried, you're one of the smartest people I know." She wished her words would get through his wall of distress.

"Oh, I think I could. I asked her, outright, a few weeks ago, if the blog was hers. She looked me in the eyes and told me I was being ridiculous, that she wouldn't do that to me. I trusted her, and it's come back to bite me. And," he added, checking his watch, "it's not even half past seven in the morning yet, and I just want to crawl back into bed and pretend this day doesn't have to happen." He sat up, and sat back against the back of the sofa, looking up at the ceiling.

Lily took one of his hands in hers. She squeezed it. "The day can't get much worse. You know what you needed to know all along. There's no more mystery."

"Maybe not, but there will be questions from upstairs, a written statement, and if the press get hold of this then we might as well give up now." He sighed, and rubbed the back of his neck with his free hand. Finally, he squeezed Lily's hand back.

"Okay, it's going to be a difficult day," Lily conceded. "But you are strong," she added firmly. "And if you don't feel it, then I'm sorry but you have to play the part. One more day, prove that you can handle this like the Clinical Lead you've proved yourself to be. And if it falls apart tonight, then —" She faltered. Dare she say exactly what she meant?

"Then __what__?" Ethan couldn't help himself being short with her.

Lily's head was spinning with decisions. It seemed like the best idea in the world to be here for Ethan no matter what, to follow her heart and tell him how she felt. And yet, she knew in her mind that it was a horrible idea. The presentation to the panel leading the Hong Kong project had gone swimmingly; they had told her it was a matter of formality, waiting for a response. She'd made it with flying colours, impressed them with her work ethic, her communication skills and her clinical record. Hong Kong was her future, so her future could not also be Ethan Hardy. But with things changing so quickly in the ED, she didn't know what she wanted anymore. And she had the strangest feeling that to move to Hong Kong might not be in her best interests now.

She let out a shaky breath. "If it all goes wrong tonight, when you've held it together all day, then… you'll still have me."

"Lily," Ethan began.

"No, I mean it," she said. "You __will__ still have me. Ethan, I love —"

"Stop," he said, his voice thick with emotion. He changed the way he was holding her hand, then brought her knuckles up to his lips. He kissed them before carefully returning her hand to her knees. Hesitantly, he began to speak, even though his words were not what he truly had to say. "There are things that I want to say, but I know you too well, and we can't do this. Your interview will have been amazing, they'll never say they don't want you on that team. You're going on to bigger and better things; I won't let you complicate what's best for you and change your trajectory, purely because of me."

"Ethan," Lily bit her lip and looked down at her linked hands. "Please. If I go —"

"— When, you mean."

Her facial expression turned down. " _ _If__ I go, it won't be until the end of January. I want that time to be spent with you."

"I feel the same, but this isn't right, right now." He sounded strained. "Of course, I want to spend that time with you, but I don't want you to decide not to do something that's so good for your career on the basis of one good thing that you have in Holby!"

Lily stood up forcefully. "You're not my singular good thing here, Ethan." She frowned, wishing this conversation had taken a very different direction. He stood up too, and despite everything that he had said, that all made so much sense, she took both of his hands. "You're a hundred good things. My decision to leave is a messy one anyway, so let me have you as my complication. I haven't heard anything yet," she said. It wasn't a lie, more a bend of the truth. "I sent that application when I had nothing to stay for, and now I'm not so sure." She moved minutely closer to Ethan, and leaned in to kiss him, giving him time to say no, to protest again that this wasn't right. If he had done so, she would have had to respect the decision.

But the temptation was too great. Ethan accepted Lily's kiss and kissed her back.

In Lily's mind, the kiss changed absolutely everything. It even quieted the never-ending narrative about the research post that had hounded her since the presentation. At one time, it had been her ticket to freedom, but now it was the thorn in her side. Yes, Holby was complicated, and yes, the research post would be good for her career. But for once, for Lily to follow her heart was far more important than following her head.


	16. Chapter 16

**Hi, it's been a little while! Honestly, I think I was totally thrown off course by what the BBC did to Sam - don't know when I'll be over that... I wish things had been so different. But, here I am, continuing the fic in the way I always planned too, with a little more encouragement in that I feel I owe it to her character to give her a marginally better story than she got in the end! Hope you enjoy this chapter. (And I deeply apologise for having ended up writing Christmas chapters at this time of year!)  
**

* * *

Thiepval Barracks, Spring 2009

As soon as Sam woke up, she knew something was wrong, because their bedroom was bathed in pitch black darkness. At first it was discomfort that filled her mind; obviously Dylan had switched the light off if he'd woken up and noticed she was asleep. She couldn't even see her hand in front of her face. The hairs on her arms lifted and she felt as though she was pinned to the bed. Paralysing fear ran thickly through her veins for what felt like an age before she warily sat up and felt for the bedside light. It was _always_ left on, without exception. Although Dylan moaned about his circadian rhythm being thrown out of whack by her need for light, and sometimes lightly teased her, comparing her to a sunflower for her dislike of dark spaces, he didn't know how afraid she was of the dark. He had no idea.

She felt around for the switch of her bedside light and flicked it a couple of times. Nothing happened. She tried it a few more times, clicking it sharply in an attempt to stun it into life. She blinked, her eyes not adjusting to the impenetrable dark. The late hour and the sudden onset of fear forced tears into her eyes that she could not wipe away. She lay flat in bed, staring at the ceiling. Even the street lights outside had gone off. There must have been a power cut, although the explanation didn't help her to feel better. Part of her wanted Dylan to wake up: she knew he was beside her because she could hear his breathing. Part of her wanted him never to see her so weak and afraid.

Gripping the duvet under her hands, she knew her breathing was getting faster. Why couldn't she have a rational fear, like falling, or drowning, or… venomous snakes? Why did her irrational, mind-bending terror have to come from something so commonplace as the dark? Each of her breaths burst in and out, and her heart beat so fast that it hurt. Every beat was a small explosion. She gasped, trying to hold in a reflexive sob.

Dylan, who had been sleeping soundly, unaware of the land of the living, woke with a start on hearing Sam's gasp.

"Sam?" he said blearily. He rubbed his eyes, blinking in the darkness. Rolling to face her, he woke up a bit more and became more aware of her. She was shaking like a leaf, even though she lay unmoving on the bed. Dylan blinked as his eyes adjusted; it was very dark tonight. He reached out for one her hands, a clenched, fearful fist that he did his best to work loose. "Are you okay?" he mumbled, already guessing her answer.

"No."

He was surprised by her answer. He had expected something sassy, _take a wild guess, Dylan, and if your answer's not 'no' then try again,_ or something of that sort. That would have been more like her, but this admission through gritted teeth that all was not well, was so telling.

"What is it?" He wanted to help, he wanted to at least _know,_ if not understand. But her silence was heartbreaking. Now wasn't the time to wonder why she couldn't trust him enough to just explain.

"You'll think it's stupid," she said quietly.

"Do you really think," he replied, yawning, "that I'd be so heartless as to point that out to you, even if I did think it was true, when it's obviously causing you so much distress?"

"No," she said, much more softly. "But it _is._ I'm a grown woman, I shouldn't be —" She stopped.

Dylan sighed. He sat up in bed, and she followed suit, not letting go of his hand until he put his arms around her in a tight hug. He could feel her shivering against him, even though it wasn't cold. "Shouldn't what, Sam?" he asked gently. "Please just tell me, whatever it is."

There was a long pause. "I hate the dark," she whispered. "I feel like the walls are closing in and it makes me panic. I hate it, I always have."

The street lights weren't on, and neither was the bedside light. The power had to be out.

 _The bedside light._ It finally made sense. Dylan had always assumed that Sam stayed up late reading: there were always books by her side of the bed. But come to think of it, he had only ever seen her read at length in the morning, rather than at night.

How was he only finding out now, that she was crushingly afraid of the dark?

"I wish I could make your fear go away," he said softly. He stroked her hair carefully, needing to do something, _anything_ , to help.

The compulsion was in his head at once. _Check the light switch. Switch it on and off, or Sam won't feel better._ He froze. He couldn't do this. He couldn't leave her alone in the dark, but he couldn't ignore this thought that was getting bigger and bigger, out of his control.

"Let me check the lights," he mumbled, embarrassed.

"Dylan," Sam warned, tensing in his arms.

It was so hard, but he had to shrug off her desperation and leave her cross-legged on the bed while he got up and tested the light, switching it on and off repeatedly, counting silently as he did so.

 _Tap around the light switch, twice around each side, and if Sam doesn't notice, she'll be safe on tour._

Dylan squeezed his eyes shut, glad that Sam wouldn't see the turmoil that he felt. He wrestled with the compulsion briefly, but there would only ever be one winner. He was letting Sam down so much, and conversely keeping her safe at the same time. He could not reconcile these two conflicting sides of his brain

In the end, he went blindly searching the kitchen for a torch. He found one, luckily, and left it switched on, on Sam's bedside table. It was a poor substitute for her reading light, he now knew. For the rest of the night, he held her close to him. She was tense for a long time, until she succumbed to sleep and released some of her tension.

* * *

The next morning, they didn't talk about the night. Sam returned the torch to the drawer beside the back door, but by bedtime, the torch was standing on its end beside her pile of books. It became a comforting presence, albeit one that they never spoke of again.

* * *

Holby, Christmas Eve 2017

When Dylan's alarm clock went off on Christmas Eve morning, it didn't feel as though he'd been asleep for anything like the seven hours that he had been. Stumbling sleepily into the living room, he was surprised to see that he had left the fairy lights, on his newly-installed small Christmas tree, switched on all night. This, he supposed, was the legacy of practically passing out from exhaustion the night before. Holding it all together was a tiring business.

There wasn't much in the way of festivity in here, but there was at least the modest tree, decorated with some of the baubles he and Sam had amassed together (hung solely on the higher branches due to Dervla's great skill in knocking anything from the bottom of the tree with her cheerfully wagging tail.) The two Christmas cards that he had opened were propped on the mantelpiece: one each from Louise and Lily. There was an unopened envelope too, completely untouched beside them. It was a medium-sized, padded envelope, no doubt containing both a card and a small gift. But he didn't know how he would bring himself to open it, because it was addressed to him in Zoe's handwriting.

He felt as though he was merely going through the motions of the morning routine he was so used to: shower, quick walk with Dervla around the still-dark marina, coffee, toast. He was about to leave for work when he remembered that he had a Christmas present to give to Sam. Sort of. Typical, really, that she would be the one to reduce him to an embarrassed teenager, hesitant to make any grand gesture for fear of ridicule.

Dervla was waiting patiently by the front door, her short lead trailing beside her. Dylan looked at her, thinking.

"It's not a terrible idea, is it?" he asked her absently.

The wolfhound groaned unhelpfully, leaning her head down as if in disapproval.

"Oh, don't give me that!" Dylan responded with mock-offence. He put the flat little box back under the tree, the only gift under there, then walked over to the door to put on his coat and scarf. He'd probably be forgiven for taking the day off, but that would be letting the OCD win. He picked up Dervla's lead, and she moaned at him once more. "Stop it," he said firmly. "It's hardly a gift, more… never mind. You win, it stays here." He took a level breath and they set off for the day.

* * *

Learning to read a person was like learning to ride a bike. You never forgot it. Sam had seen, from the moment that she walked into the ED, that Dylan was not himself. Perhaps she didn't know yet, how to read his OCD, but she knew so well, how to notice when he wasn't listening to something with his full attention. It was something she had learned very quickly when their paths had first crossed. And now, when she was asking him simply for an update on one of the patients she'd handed over earlier in the shift, his eyes were all over the place, his hands were not still, and there were gaps between his sentences that suggested it was taking a good deal of effort to retrieve information and then feed it out again.

"Dylan, stop," she said, reaching out a hand and placing it gently on his arm.

He met her eyes with confusion, and something else that she wanted to read as affection.

"Can we go somewhere quieter?" Sam asked.

Dylan nodded. "Yes please," he said, then licked his lips anxiously.

Sam pulled him away from the hustle and bustle of the ED's main thoroughfare. The staffroom was empty; she never remembered it being so quiet so often, when she had been a registrar here.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

Dylan wasn't sure how to answer her. He wanted to be honest and she deserved that much; it still wasn't easy. Both of them had their hands by their sides, then he reached awkwardly for one of her hands and held it. It was grounding to feel her skin on his once more. It didn't fix all of his thoughts but it made it a little easier. Their eye contact remained unbroken, so there was no immediate acknowledgement of the tiny gesture except for a minute responsive squeeze on his hand.

"There's something on your mind, though, I can tell."

His shoulders dropped slightly. "It's not an easy question to answer, Sam. And it's not something that I expect you to understand, either."

"Try me," Sam said. She sighed. Every ticking second was one closer to her being called away, and this conversation being cut short. "Please? I _do_ want to know, and I _do_ care about you."

"Which makes it all the harder," said Dylan. "I'm not _not_ okay. I'm obviously better than the worst of me that you've seen," he said, referencing that night on the boat. "I'm just not… _okay_ , either. I want to be back to normal."

Sam reflected briefly on the time she'd spent in hospital in Birmingham, after she was invalided home. She had been angry, upset, in pain and lost. And when all of that subsided, she'd thought she could slot back into normal life like nothing had happened. She'd had a burning desire for this. But she'd had an extended period of feeling stuck. Stuck between being injured and being normal again. She wasn't explicitly in shock or mental distress, but she couldn't feel happy, either. It was the most frustrating part of her recovery, even considering the physicality that hounded her to this day.

There was quite a bit of explanation that she owed to Dylan.

"I do understand," she said quietly. "I _do_ know that you mean. I don't know how to fix it, but it will pass. You'll find your normal again.

Dylan's eyes narrowed and he let go of Sam's hand. He had a lot of questions.

"Just don't drop the ball," she went on, not giving him the time to press her for information. "You're doing well. You're in work, and you've been sober for a good while now." She smiled at him, distancing them both from the somewhat darker undertones the conversation had had a few moments ago.

"I didn't realise you were paying attention to that."

"Of course I'm paying attention to that, Dylan! Someone's got to, and… I'm just glad you're letting me."

The worried expression that had marred Dylan's face began to lighten. He _liked_ having her notice him again, and he liked that they could have a conversation without heated confrontation. He liked seeing her around and feeling an almost magnetic attraction between them, every time he did so.

"In any case," Sam said, "you can still call or text me whenever you need to. Even if — even if you don't think that it's a 'need' and you're just feeling alone. You don't have to feel like that." She paused. "It is Christmas, after all."

Dylan rolled his eyes, smirking. "Don't I know it. Even the injuries coming in are festively themed today. Glass baubles should be outlawed."

It was Sam's turn to roll her eyes. "I seem to remember you liking them just fine when we had a tree full of them!" Her eyes sparkled, thinking of the joyous Christmas before they were married, and their first married Christmas, when she hadn't been returned from deployment until late January, but she'd found that Dylan had put Christmas back on for her, regardless.

"And I seem to remember that I had a certain amount of encouragement," Dylan replied drily. There was still warmth in his eyes though, as he found himself recalling fond memories.

"I suppose none of them survived all the moves we did," Sam wondered, before realising her suggestion that he should have kept everything exactly as it was, was a ridiculous one. "Not that you'd have wanted to keep any," she added quickly.

Dylan frowned minutely, thinking of his Christmas tree on the boat, but giving nothing away. "Um, no." There was a mildly awkward silence. He suddenly remembered the Christmas present for her, his mind clicked into gear: it was Christmas Eve and he would not get another chance to make this offer. He opened his mouth, but was interrupted before he could speak.

The staffroom door opened: Iain and Ethan had both arrived with cause to pull both Sam and Dylan away from their conversation.

"Sam, we've got to go," Iain said, tilting his head in the direction of the bitterly cold outside.

"Alright, I'm ready," she replied. She was half way to the door when she turned around briefly to Dylan, as if offering to stay if she was needed, as if that was even an option.

"Don't give me a second thought," said Dylan firmly. "Be safe, though."

Sam nodded. "I will."

When Sam and Iain were gone, Ethan remained just inside the staffroom, holding the door open with his foot.

"Resus, please, Dr Keogh — if that's okay." He was eager not to upset the potentially delicate balance which his colleague appeared to have found.

"Of course it's okay." Dylan's tone had returned to its usual briskness. "I'm fine."

"Oh - well - good," Ethan said, doing his best to neither sound flustered nor put his foot in it even more.

* * *

Dylan's eyes were wide when Sam and Iain returned with their patient. He confidently met them at the door, eager to distract himself and prove himself to her (if he'd had time to think, he would have realised the role reversal going on; back at King's, Sam would have moved heaven and earth to impress him.) The patient was unresponsive, an older man with closed eyes and unsettlingly blue lips.

"Sam? Ready for handover," he said firmly, matching her pace as she walked beside him, helping Iain to direct the trolley into resus. "Bay three," he added before she started handing over at a million miles an hour.

"Okay, so this is John Saunders, according to his driving license. Sixty-seven years old. Approximately thirty-five minutes ago he suffered a cardiac arrest in a shop with a defib, which was used twice, before compressions were started. He's now got a weak pulse, GCS of seven with very low BP and resps. Sats are low even on oxygen."

Sam watched in vague awe as Dylan set to work, proud of how he worked exactly as she remembered him doing so all those years ago. He was focused and determined. Despite all she knew of this patient and his frankly abysmal outlook, she wanted to believe that Dylan could save him. Her work here in resus was done; she turned to leave.

"Sam," he said, making her turn back to him. He hadn't broken his focus on the patient.

"I'm still here," Sam replied. It was a necessary statement to make because he wasn't looking up; he was working incessantly and might not have noticed her otherwise. Why had he asked her to stay at all, when the situation in here was so critical?

"When do you finish, tonight?" he asked, in between asking for bloods to be done and starting the primary survey.

"Seven thirty, why?" It was infinitely easier to do this over a patient, whatever _this_ was.

"Can you come and see me, on the boat? I - um - I have your Christmas present." It was out there now, and Dylan was glad of having a critically ill patient to focus his attention on.

He didn't look up, so he was oblivious to the raised eyebrows around him. He also missed out on Sam's bashful smile.

"Yeah, I'll do that," she replied, not sure he'd even heard her before she left resus.

* * *

The ED was an eternally hopeful place, but Lily found it hard to believe that this patient would recover, or pull through at all. She tried hard not to think of the statistics for cardiac arrest outside of hospital and the very low likelihood of survival. The man in bay three had, according to Dylan, arrived with a thready pulse, but now he didn't even have that much. The rounds of resuscitation all blended into one relentless attempt to save his life.

When Lily followed Dylan's instructions to push adrenaline again and then take over compressions, she pushed all thoughts of her patient going about his normal Christmassy business far out of her mind.

"Have we — got — next of — kin?" she asked breathlessly, pumping the man's chest.

"A wife, on her way in."

Lily didn't have to look up to know that he would be frowning. He was trying to make the impossible decision that they had all faced, many times before. Call time on the patient and put a stop to this most undignified of fights, or wait until their family was beside them for the briefest of goodbyes? She reached the end of this cycle of compressions and paused momentarily for signs of any cardiac or respiratory effort

"I know it's Christmas Eve, and I know you don't want him to die alone. But I think we should stop. He's not alone, we're with him."

"That's not the same," Dylan protested. "I'm doing one more, I have to try."

"Alright, Lily conceded quietly. "This is the last."

It struck her that perhaps this was more than Dylan staunchly refusing to lose a patient. Was his stubborn determination just a pure manifestation of obsessiveness? If it was, how on earth could she broach this with him? Her greatest fear would be speaking out of turn, condescendingly pretending she knew best about something that was very real and valid. She watched the monitoring equipment with great concern and every ounce of her concentration. Biting the end of her tongue behind lips pressed tightly together, she tried to make up her mind. The patient was dying, nothing was making any difference. Perhaps he was gone already; she had to think of him, and of Dylan too.

Nothing was making any difference.

Until, suddenly, it was.

Lily's eyes nearly popped out of her head. "He's back in sinus rhythm," she said, in total disbelief.

Dylan hid his surprise; he'd expected this outcome about as much as Lily had. "To work, then."

"Yes, we need to support breathing and prepare to intubate," Lily said matter-of-factly, pushing her sleeves further up her arms. "I don't think we should take any chances on him supporting his own airway; he's weak as it is."

"Quite right, take the lead, Lily."

* * *

"I think," Lily said, when the patient had been taken upstairs and she and Dylan were walking out of resus, "that I should apologise for doubting you."

"You really don't have to do that," Dylan replied. "There was very little hope for him, it was a fluke. A Christmas miracle, if you're that way inclined."

"I don't think either of us are particularly going to subscribe to that theory," Lily bounced back. "No, I doubted your judgement, I assumed that you weren't thinking straight and I shouldn't have done."

"Ah." Dylan understood. He expected to feel an onslaught of grumpiness to direct towards Lily, for daring to think logically about what she knew of his potential obsessiveness. But it didn't come. He felt a little sheepish, embarrassed even, and finally, grateful. Grateful to have someone to look out for him. She wasn't Sam — he neither wanted nor needed her to be — but perhaps she would become, in time, someone a little like Zoe. She had understood as much as she could, tried her best with the rest, but she was always there, come what may. Dylan had always firmly held the belief that he didn't need friends, but he saw now that he'd been wrong all along. "I think, with the overwhelming evidence which you have been presented with, I would have doubted me too."

After the intensity of resus, the rest of the ED seemed relatively settled. The usual installation of carol singers had assumed their position outside the hospital, and a few words drifted in on the sub-zero-degrees wind that blasted in with every opening of the automatic doors.

"Do you want a cup of coffee?" Lily asked, as it became more than mildly irritating to have _Once In Royal David's City_ meld in her ears with _I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day._ "I mean, I can't promise you the time to actually sit and drink it…"

"The most desired and yet least common outcome of anything in the ED," Dylan said, rolling his eyes. It had been a kind offer, but it was one he had to refuse. The memory of caffeine turning that night on the boat from bad to awful was still a raw one. "I'd better not," he went on, "I'm not on speaking terms with caffeine at the moment. Think of the buzz you get, and them then apply that feeling to staving off panic. I am fine," he said for clarity's sake, "but I would like to keep it that way."

Lily nodded. "Of course, that makes sense." She took a step away from him, then reconsidered. "There's decaf in the cupboard too, you know?"

Dylan shrugged. "Alright. I suppose I should acclimatise to it sooner or later."

* * *

"I see you're not on the rota for tomorrow, are you doing anything nice?" Dylan asked, on accepting his coffee. He wasn't the best person for small talk, but this was something he could, and should, manage.

Lily paused before answering. She watched Dylan steel himself, take a sip of the drink, then visibly relax when it wasn't as terrible as he'd expected. "I'm driving down to see my mother, as soon as the shift finishes."

"You and the rest of the country; I'm sure it's going to be a perfectly delightful journey."

"It's not as though I had much choice in the matter!" Lily replied dejectedly. "It's normally just under three hours' drive, but it'll be more like five tonight. I'm coming back up on Boxing Day afternoon, even worse, I should think."

"I don't envy you one bit," Dylan said, wrapping both hands around his mug. "Unless there's some kind of armageddon, I have no plans at all for Boxing Day, and I'd like to keep it that way."

Lily's eyes narrowed. She leaned back against the sink and took a long drink. "You're not working Christmas Day again, are you? I remember you worked the day shift last year, with me and —" She faltered slightly. "With me and Cal."

Dylan dropped his gaze. It was too hard to explain why he'd worked every Christmas for the last seven or eight years. Far easier to be vacant, and put up his usual defence of abrasiveness. Point blank ignoring the comment about Cal, he simply replied: "Let's call it repentance, for a lifetime of sin," he said darkly. As expected, Lily looked shocked, but didn't question him.

Dylan's pager buzzed in his pocket. He looked down into his cup. "Not even half finished. I've done worse, but I've certainly done better, too."

"If I don't get a chance to catch up with you before the end of the shift, I hope your Boxing Day plans aren't interrupted,"

Dylan almost smiled. It was sweet of her to acknowledge his different appreciation of the festive season, and not to push her luck by asking why. He nodded.

"And I won't use the Q-word about tomorrow, but you know what I'm wishing for that, too." The 'Q-word' was a bit like 'the Scottish play.' If a shift was ever described as 'quiet,' before or during said shift, it was a given that it would be anything but, from that point onward.

"Thank you. Merry Christmas, Lily."


	17. Chapter 17

**Another chapter at last, hope you enjoy it :)**

* * *

Holby, Christmas Eve 2017

Sitting in wait of Sam, Dylan thought that at least she would notice his mental stability in that he had allowed Christmas onto the boat at last. But it wasn't until he heard her knocking at the door that he realised his omission of the truth surrounding their Christmas baubles was about to come back and bite him. There was no time to remedy this; he'd have to either lie through his teeth or draw as little attention to the tree as possible. As if either of those were viable options.

He opened the door for her and his heart warmed. There was hope in her eyes and snow in her hair; as he looked beyond her he could see that the air was speckled with snowflakes although none had settled on the ground.

"It's trying, but it's not sticking," she said, as though she had read his mind.

"Such is the norm," he replied, slipping easily back into their old way of talking to each other. It felt good.

"Can I come in, then? It's freezing."

He stepped aside to let her in, and hung her coat over his on the hook by the door.

Sam looked around; the cosy comfort of the place stood out to her far more than the last time she had visited. "Christmas has finally reached you!" she remarked with a cheerful voice.

"Yes, I took to heart your allusions to the Grinch, and made a vague attempt to counter it," said Dylan drily.

"Well, you've done a good job." She continued to look around until her eyes fell on the Christmas tree. It was a real tree and it smelled incredible; in less than two seconds she had recognised the baubles on the branches.

When Dylan noticed where she was looking, his heart sank. A hundred lacklustre explanations ricocheted around his mind, all of which were erased the second Sam made her way over to the tree and inspected them all with an expression of mild joy.

Sam knelt by the tree. Warm white lights were draped amongst the branches, casting their tiny glints of light over the gently sparkling baubles. "You said you hadn't kept any," she said, a green and gold sphere cradled in her the palm of her hand.

"I may have bent the truth a little."

There had never been a good time to throw them out; whenever he'd stumbled upon them again, he'd remembered her innocent joy instead of his periodical intense dislike of her. These decorations had not surfaced every year — some years he had not 'done' Christmas and the years that he __had,__ he hadn't always wanted the stark contrast of nostalgia and bittersweet wistfulness for what might have been.

Dervla padded over to where Sam was kneeling and presented herself expectantly to be stroked, or at the very least have her ears scratched. Sam was only too happy to oblige, so in a few seconds the wolfhound was stretched out on her back to have her tummy rubbed. Sam's eyes wandered, and fell on the only present under the tree. A small label bore her name in a hand that looked very different from Dylan's scrawling half-cursive that she'd come to recognise.

She stood up, taking the little box with her, and looked at Dylan quizzically.

"Can I open it?" she asked.

"This may come as a shock to you, but you're an adult now, Sam. I'm not going to stop you," he said derisively. He shrugged his shoulders, his demeanour shifting. "In any case, I was rather hoping that you'd open it here, Christmas Eve or not."

With great curiosity, Sam untied the ribbon on the little box. She gently flicked her thumb under the edge of the lid then lifted it fully. The box contained the 'S' pendant that she had left behind. Opening her mouth to speak had no effect: there were no words forthcoming. Her mouth was dry and her heart was beating ten-to-the-dozen because this was something amazing. She was relieved to have it back, and touched that obtuse and grumpy Dylan had gone to the effort of making this special. A tiny smile began to make itself known. The corners of her mouth turned up and for a couple of seconds she covered her lips with the fingertips of one hand. She couldn't drag her eyes away from the necklace.

Dylan filled her silence. "I know it's hardly a Christmas present, when all I've done is return something that was yours all along —"

"Stop it," Sam said, finding words at last. "I'm only silent because I can't remember the last time somebody gave me such a lovely gift. I'm happy, Dylan."

She kissed his cheek, then drew back, rolling her lips between her front teeth and squeezing her eyes shut. She didn't regret it, instead wondering if it would be a mistake to go further than a polite kiss on the cheek.

"Thank you," she said, her voice little more than a whisper.

When she carefully pulled the necklace free of the box, preparing to put it on, Dylan reached for it and took it from her hands.

"Let me?" he said cautiously.

She nodded. She pulled her scarf off with one hand and swept her hair up and away from her neck with the other.

It was almost a mirror of the first time he had presented her with this necklace. Back then, however, he'd fastened the tiny clasp then kissed the space where it touched her skin. Wisps of her blonde hair had begun to escape where she'd held it all messily up in her hands. Dylan thought that if he was ever granted his wish to go back in time to change things, then he would elect for that precise moment.

This time, he saw that there was already a chain around her neck, and a glance over her shoulder, now that she wasn't wearing her scarf, showed him that it suspended her engagement and wedding rings. He hardly dared to breathe. Sam hadn't noticed that he'd seen them because she was still facing away from him. The delicate clasp was still between his fingers; he focused very hard on opening it with his thumbnail and slotting the end part of the chain into it. She still wore the same perfume, and that scent gave him such a feeling of comfort and home. When the necklace was fastened, he carefully let it fall into place around her neck.

He coughed, forcing himself back to breathing normally. __Sort yourself out, Dylan,__ he thought urgently as Sam turned to face him. "I - um - I didn't realise you'd kept those." He nodded nervously at the rings.

Sam's left hand clapped over them at once, her eyes widening and her cheeks reddening with embarrassment. "Oh - I - um —" She let out a sigh before running a hand through her hair and sitting down heavily on the sofa, the small box that had contained the necklace still in her hands. She fidgeted with it as she tried to construct an explanation. "You probably think I'm mad," she said, when after ten seconds she had come up with nothing at all.

Dylan, who still stood in front of her, tilted his head down and looked at her, questioningly sarcastic. "I think that would be a bit rich, coming from me, wouldn't it?"

Sam knew that facial expression and tone so well. " _ _Not__ what I meant," she replied. She wasn't sure what the protocol was, whether she was allowed to join in his self-deprecating humour around his mental health. The fact that she felt so much discomfort around doing so told her that it would be horrible idea.

"After everything that happened, and after all this time?"

The only way out of this, Sam realised, was to trust him enough to tell him the truth. Trust that he wouldn't laugh, that he wouldn't make her feelings seem irrelevant, that he might just listen and maybe even understand. "Yeah," she said quietly. "You're still my safe harbour. Even after all this time, you're the only person that really means something to me. I had to carry you with me, when I was alone."

He had heard that phrase from her before, 'safe harbour.' How had her life been, since leaving Holby, to make certain that he was still the most significant figure? She had a second ex-husband, and other surely other friends too. He certainly wasn't about to complain about being her best option, not when her presence made him feel safe too. "Sam, it's okay," he reassured her, coming to sit next to her on the sofa. "You're my safe harbour, too. I'm… I'm glad that you kept them," he admitted.

"I couldn't throw you away. We didn't work, we were messy and what we had, it changed… it's changed us too, I think. But I still couldn't get rid of it. I don't want to." The switch to present tense was deliberate; she hoped he'd notice it. She reached for the necklaces and held the two rings and the letter 'S' between her fingers and thumb. "It's stupid, I bet you didn't keep __yours.__ "

"I don't know where you've got this staunch assumption from, that I threw everything out. Probably from my pigheadedness and utter refusal to acknowledge you, when I really ought to have done. I grant you, I didn't keep very much, but I did keep that," he finally told her.

"Oh," Sam said in response, unable to add much more. She stood up, facing away from him and putting physical distance between herself and the ground-breaking shifts that were coming about between herself and Dylan.

Dylan stood up too; by putting a gentle hand on her shoulder, he successfully got her to look at him again. Her head half-turned in his direction. He looked into her eyes and it was like looking in a mirror and stepping back in time, all in one go. Reflecting back at him was all the confusion and uncertainty that came from working out what on God's green earth they were doing with their challenging relationship, if they even had one. It had all been complicated, or at least changed, one hundred fold, by the newly shared knowledge that they were both still in possession of the symbols of their once-sweet, once-broken marriage. But this working out whether they should pursue any feelings that they did have, they'd done it before. Like now, it had happened slowly and then all at once — and Dylan had the strongest sense that it was about to go that way again. Perhaps that wasn't for the best. Rushing into it hadn't done any good, last time. If they could take a breath, and take it slowly, maybe they'd have a chance.

"Sam?" he said carefully. "Just because we didn't work before, it doesn't mean that we couldn't work now."

Sam crossed one of her hands across her chest and awkwardly half-held Dylan's hand on her shoulder. "I know."

A small crease appeared between her eyebrows, and Dylan knew she was thinking hard. Her lips were pressed tightly together, not turned down but on the negative side of neutral. She turned her body around to him.

"I want us to work, Dylan." Getting those words out felt surreal. "I care about you, I worry about you, and I wish things had been different, between us. I can't tell you, how much it meant to me that you trusted me enough, even now, to tell me about the struggles you've had. I really, really want us to work."

"I want that too." When Sam had turned, the contact between their hands was broken, and at that moment he tried to take it back. But Sam wouldn't let him.

She was thinking of her injury and her scar, and the way that all the while the chasm between them was closing, she was keeping it wide open by keeping her secret.

"I just don't know how," she said wistfully. "I want it, but what we had, when things were good, it's going to take an awful lot to fix what we broke."

"Then… let's do it slower, this time. Let's not run away with ourselves like we did. Let's just accept that… we'd like it, but we're not very good at it, yet."

Sam offered him a small smile. "Look at you, with an even older head on your shoulders than normal!"

Dylan cocked his head slightly to one side. "Well I suppose that I ought to use my advanced years for something."

"Advanced years? You're only forty-one, calm down."

That was that, their serious conversation steered away.

Looking everywhere except Dylan, Sam's eyes fell on the envelope propped on the mantelpiece.

"I recognise that handwriting, don't I?" she said, a small frown of concentration settled on her brow.

"I'd say so," Dylan said sardonically. "It's Zoe's."

"Oh, of course it is! What's she doing, these days?" The conversation moved to meaningful small talk; Sam was eager to hear about her friend and former Clinical Lead's new venture in the States. It was very much as though she and Dylan had not just admitted to having something resembling mutual feelings of affection. That was knowledge to be kept safe for another time.

* * *

"Will I see you tomorrow?" Sam asked him when she was preparing to leave. But an old seed of information surfaced — "Oh, no I won't," she corrected herself. "You're working Christmas again, I imagine." At one time it had brought her a strange comfort that he'd taken the only shift less popular than New Year or Valentine's day, year on year. She'd liked that he'd elected to surround himself with others when they could not be together. But this rose-tinted view had not lasted forever: when they'd last worked together in Holby it had saddened her that he still had no-one to spend the Christmas period with. And now, his stubborn insistence that he could do some good this way, was getting in the way of their difficult attempts to be __something.__

"In my defence," Dylan said apologetically, "I had no way of knowing, back in October when it was decided, that I'd have a __very__ good reason __not__ to work Christmas day." He put his hands in his pockets and rounded his shoulders. "Boxing day?"

Sam bit her lip. "You'll be doing your own thing, I don't want to intrude."

"You wouldn't be," he replied firmly. "Perhaps I'm a raging introvert, but I have exceptions. Boxing day?"

"Alright, you're on." She nodded, and fixed her scarf snugly under the collar of her jacket. She allowed Dylan to walk her to the door — something he really didn't have to do in such a small space, and therefore something that she found endearing. "Merry Christmas, Dylan," she said at the door. Snow still swirled in the air, the ground resolutely unmarked. Kissing his cheek again, she noticed that he wore the same aftershave that he always had. She hugged him, and it felt good to be hugged back at once. His reassuring hold made her feel good, despite how messy their non-relationship was. He patted her back once before they drew apart.

"Merry Christmas." He touched his lips briefly to her forehead.

* * *

Later, he was wrestling with the decision of going to bed before tomorrow's shift, or calling Zoe. It would be his last chance to do so before Christmas, and no doubt she would be busy tomorrow and wouldn't welcome the intrusion. He help his phone in his hands, toying with what he would say and what could be said of all that had happened in the extended period since they last spoke.

He initiated the call before he had time to talk himself out of it, not even considering the differing timezones and telling himself that the worst she could do was not answer. The phone held to his ear, he unconsciously tapped the back of it in between each dialling tone. He'd almost convinced himself that she wasn't going to pick up, that she wouldn't want to talk to him, when he finally heard her voice.

"Hello?"

"Why does it always have to be phrased as a question? If you saw me in the street, you wouldn't say 'hello' as if you were asking me a question."

Over three thousand miles away, Zoe rolled her eyes. "Seeing as I'm presently in New York, I think that if I saw you in the street I'd be entitled to sound a little confused!"

"New York?"

"You know I've always wanted to be in New York at Christmas time, and Michigan is a much more convenient distance than Holby," she explained. "Carpe diem."

"And you've learned Latin while you've been away," Dylan added sarcastically. "Fancy."

"Oh shut up!" Zoe said lightly. "I was almost ready to say that I've missed you."

"I believe the common turn of phrase among the youth is 'back at you'," Dylan replied, all sarcasm dissipated.

"It's been a long time, I know." There was a sombre pause before Zoe's enthusiasm returned. "So, tell all, what's new in Holby?"

Dylan frowned. "Aren't I stopping you having your Christmas Eve?"

"Of course not," Zoe said firmly. "We've not talked in months, and I __do__ want to know. Besides," she added, "I'm hours behind you. I've got plenty of Christmas Eve left, and even if I didn't, I'd still swap it all to hear from you. What's been happening?"

"Well…" Dylan hesitated. "We have a new Clinical Lead, the OCD came back, I've switched to decaf coffee, there's been… some alcohol… and Sam's in Holby again."

Zoe let out a reflexive laugh that showed marginally more horror than amusement. "Hold on, hold on. I would __love__ to know you assessed those points into that order of importance!"

"Did I say they were in order of importance?" Dylan asked drily.

Sighing, Zoe shook her head before saying no. Evidently there was a lot of catching up to be done. Starting with — "Sam Nicholls? __Your__ Sam?"

* * *

To hell with knowing that tiredness could and would wreak havoc on his misbehaving mind; sleep could wait, while this long, much-needed conversation could not. And it had to wait even more, once Zoe had called time at once on his insistence that he was happy to go slowly with Sam. Her words replayed again and again in his mind.

"I'm glad that she was there, when I couldn't be. I'm glad you talked to her," she had said. "I know you two are complicated, but make sure you don't mess it up," she went on bluntly. "I know you, Dylan, and if you've made up your mind about her, you won't change it. When you know something, you know it and you don't let go. Don't hang around and wait to tell her that she means something to you."

Dylan had floundered at these words. Zoe was right, of course.

"Don't assume that she knows. People always assume that these things go without saying, and it's a mistake. We see it every day in the ER —"

"ER? Ooh, get you!"

But Zoe had ignored it, ploughing on passionately because if her purpose on this earth was to stop her best friend being a bloody fool over Sam Nicholls __on his third chance,__ then the mission was gladly accepted. "We see it __every day,__ people regretting the things they never said, and not being forward when they had the chance."

* * *

King's College Hospital, February 2007

Since the joyous complexity of their New Year's Eve, Dylan and Sam had not passed one word between them about their relationship. They weren't frosty towards each other; they communicated in a professional sense and Sam remained about the only person in that ED who didn't find Dylan's mannerisms entirely insufferable. They weren't frosty, but they did not acknowledge the existence of a 'them', either.

Sam's feelings towards her mentor had not cooled one bit, despite how much she might have tried to act to the contrary. Like everyone in the department (regardless of their personal standing on Dylan's personality) she respected him: he was good at what he did, and knew pretty much __everything,__ without that being too great an exaggeration. But the brief flashes that she had experienced, of his briskmanner slipping and his grumpy façadefalling, had stolen her heart. She couldn't separate her mentor from the man she rather saw herself falling in love with, which sometimes got her into trouble…

* * *

Dylan called each of his students to his office that morning, in turn, to discuss their portfolios and next steps. He saved Sam for last, because in truth he dreaded being alone with her. In front of others it was easy to put up a front, to pretend there was nothing between them. When they were alone, there could be no denying any of it, and he feared more than anything that he'd say something amiss and make her think that he didn't want her.

The other students had stood in the room, as though they felt out of place, until they were invited to sit. Sam, on the other hand, came in and sat straight away, after pulling a chair closer to Dylan's desk. She reached a hand up to where her hair was secured in a bun that clearly wasn't up to her standards, judging by her frustrated sigh as soon as she touched it. While he was still flipping through the file she'd brought with her, she pulled the hair-tie from her hair and let her hair fall over her shoulders. She left the hair-tie on her wrist, for the time being.

"Not bad," Dylan said, narrowing his eyes and running his finger down a page.

Sam scoffed. "Not bad?!"

"Better than most, not as good as some," he said, trying to remain true to his usual self despite wanting nothing more than to tell Sam that her file was easily the best, aside from one notable exception.

"Oh come off it, Dylan!" Sam argued cockily.

Dylan shot her a warning look.

Anyone else would have shrunk back in response to his glare, but not Sam. " _ _Dr Keogh,__ " she corrected, "I'd argue my file is above average."

He couldn't hold back any more. Her tone and delivery amused him too much; he released a syllable of laughter.

This was a mistake: Sam took it the wrong way and frowned. "What's wrong with it? I've been in resus more than anything, I've not ignored lower-level stuff in cubicles, my trauma work has improved tenfold since I've been here, and I've listened to feedback."

"All of that is true," Dylan said, attempting to cool the situation. "You're doing well, there's nothing __wrong__ with your portfolio. But the first thing anyone's going to notice, even from a brief observation, is that you're missing paediatric experience."

Sam stood up, sighing sharply, ready to straight-up argue her cause. "As if I'm going to need evidence of paeds cases in Afghanistan!"

"Perhaps not," Dylan retorted, "but you're going to need it if you want me to sign off your placement."

This was the ultimate threat. She could argue all she liked, but she would not pass the year without the evidence. That wasfact, no matter how much conflict it caused. The conflict was why it was hard to be her mentor. If they didn't get along so well in the peace, then the war would not be so intense.

* * *

Sam had left the office scowling, but she stormed into the shift with a flawless smile that only Dylan knew to be false.

There was a good reason why Sam wanted to specialise in adult trauma and not anything to do with paediatric medicine. She had intense respect for those who could do this every day. It was difficult and draining: so often, children didn't do what they were told, or they didn't respond typically to treatment. And, at the end of the day, they were just children. They didn't deserve to end up in A&E at all, in Sam's book.

It was a difficult shift, one which would probably be easier if she wasn't working at full tilt to spite Dylan. Perhaps he had been right, but how dare he use the ultimate threat of not passing her placement?

* * *

It was blindingly obvious that she was doing her best to impress him. She was a force of nature, on such a mission to prove herself that her sense of self ceased to matter. By the time Dylan caught up with her, mid-afternoon, there was a gentle frown line worn into her forehead, the pen was missing from where it was usually found in her hair, and her eyes looked weary. She seemed lost, drowning in the ED ocean.

"Dr Nicholls, you've proved your point," he conceded.

She turned to face him, frowning. "Have I now? Not going to fail me anymore? Excellent," she said sharply.

She turned away, but Dylan reached for her arm to keep her attention a few seconds longer. His fingertips brushed her elbow as the red phone was returned to its cradle and they were both paused in motion by hearing the voice of one of the senior nurses over the PA system.

 _"_ _ _Paediatric trauma call, ETA seven minutes."__

"Sam," Dylan said immediately. "Don't."

"Don't what? Don't do my job? Not particularly good mentor behaviour, that." She walked in the direction of resus, where she met the nurse who had announced the incoming trauma.

Dylan stayed where he was, watching from his distance and planning to walk away as soon as Sam had entered resus to keep sprinting through the shift. But he saw the interaction between Sam and the nurse, and he saw Sam's shoulders fall, before she looked briefly back at him and walked into resus. She was looking __for__ him, as though… she needed him. Her moment's glance seemed to admit that she was out of her depth now.

* * *

The patient was a seven year old boy, bit by a car while riding his bike. Dylan and Sam worked seamlessly, their tensions forgotten. But they couldn't save him.

Sam seemed shell-shocked. She was silent, unable to call the time of death. She took a few unsteady steps back away from the resus bay and blinked, hard. She was staring into space when Dylan moved himself into her field of vision and put a hand on each of her shoulders.

"Samantha, my office, please," he said gently.

"But the parents—" she protested, the first words she'd said in a good few minutes.

Dylan shook his head. "Let someone else."

Sam squeezed her eyes shut. She felt Dylan's hold on her shoulders grow firmer, as public a display of affection as she was ever likely to get.

* * *

Even in the relative safety of Dylan's office, she was frozen in time, motionless in empty space until he hugged her. She leaned into his white shirt, wishing she could cry and just get it all out of her system.

"It's been one hell of a day," he said at last, when she lessened her vice-like hug.

Sam sighed. "Yes."

"You didn't have to go all guns blazing, you know? You could have gone more slowly, spread it out more. I don't understand, you're so all-or-nothing."

Stepping back from him, Sam laughed weakly. "Coming from you, going from Dr Grumpy to __this__!"

Dylan shrugged, taking a seat at his desk and gesturing for Sam to assume her usual position, perching against it. "Perhaps I shouldn't have been so blunt this morning. It made you work yourself into the ground, and it was quite difficult to watch. That was no way to bring out your best."

Sam ran a hand down her plait. "But I don't want you to go easy on me, either. If I'm not the best then the army won't want me, and if I can't have that…" She stopped, a little sadness in her face.

Dylan hurried to correct himself. "Your all-or-nothing __makes__ you one of the best, Sam. If the army doesn't want you, then they don't know what they're missing."

She looked down at her lap, the afternoon's events still raw enough to stop her accepting his praise. At once, Dylan was standing in front of her, a finger lifting her chin so she would look at him.

"I mean it," he said. "It's no good if I'm the only one believing in you. You have to do it too."

Sam stood up straight until she was no longer leaning on the desk. She met Dylan's piercing gaze and gently bit her bottom lip. Her confidence was momentarily replenished by his admission that he believed in her. She leaned in to kiss him. It had been a very long time, but it was worth the wait.


	18. Chapter 18

**So tonight's episode with Dylan and Ciara turned me a little bit emotional... Here is a brighter chapter, I hope!**

* * *

King's College Hospital, August 2007

Sam's final shift in the ED at King's came around very quickly. She'd been right, of course, that the final month would run away with them. Unlike some of her peers, all the boxes had been ticked; there was no question of her placement being passed. This meant that her last few shifts were relatively stress-free. There was still the sometimes insurmountable pressure of working at saving lives on a minute-by-minute basis, but at least there was no longer any requirement to meet certain criteria. She would pass with flying colours, so now could try and enjoy the job that she had chosen.

On her last day, she took up a number of paediatric cases, something which amused Dylan greatly when he found out over lunch. As it was her last day, she had decided she no longer cared what people thought and had insisted on having lunch with him. Eight months of varying degrees of sneaking around were quite enough.

They sat in the memorial garden in bright sunlight, each downloading their shifts so far.

"I've heard good things about you, today," Dylan said, giving her a rare smile. "Would you like to tell me about your morning? I believe it was quite different to your previous brush with paediatrics…"

Sam rolled her eyes, knowing exactly to what he was alluding. "You always have to be sarcastic about it, don't you?" She leaned against him, dropping her head onto his shoulder for a second. They were lucky to have even managed this much of a conversation without being called back to the ED, so she would cherish every second. "You've really asked me a rhetorical question; you'll have already looked and you know exactly what I've done this morning."

She stretched the little finger of one hand until it was linked around Dylan's. After a few seconds, he shifted his hand until his other fingers crept over Sam's hand to hold it properly.

"Eleven year old, CAMHS referral. Five year old, moderate head trauma," she recited.

"And by all accounts, you dealt with both admirably. Well done."

It was so rare to hear praise coming from Dylan, which made it all the more special when it did come around. Sam kissed his cheek quickly. "Thank you."

An awful lot of confidence came from knowing it was their last day together in this hospital. Without it, Dylan would not have turned to face Sam and kiss her on the lips, that much was certain.

Sam pulled away, her face folding sadly. "This really is the last one," she said. "No more, after today." She paused. "Will there still be an 'us', when we're not tied together by this place?"

Dylan was taken aback. "Of course there will! Don't be daft, I will still love you when you're working somewhere else. You're going to St George's, not Timbuktu."

"If I kiss you again, will you stop with your dry remarks for five minutes?"

He thought for a moment, tilting his head slightly to one side. "I might be persuaded," he said at last. "Five minutes would be a lot of kissing, though."

She laughed at the implication that the only way to stop him would be to keep his mouth otherwise occupied. "That's pushing your luck, I think."

Nonetheless, knowing that they were out of sight, she set to kissing him, until both their pagers erupted with sound.

"That's typical," she said, looking up at the clear blue sky.

"This place is nothing if not consistent," Dylan replied. "Can't be having an easy ride on your last day."

* * *

"I knew it!"

Sam turned around sharply on hearing her friend's voice — it was Jane, one of her fellow F1s. "You knew what?" she asked warily, well-aware that for the last six months or so, after one too many close calls, she and Dylan had taken a lot of care not to arrive in the same place at the same time, something which they had not thought to do today. Sam was very glad that Dylan was nowhere near here; he had already strode into the thick of resus.

"You and Dr Keogh! I bloody well knew it!"

Sam's jaw dropped, which only served to prove the truth in what had been said. Incapable of speech for a few seconds, she looked at the ceiling, and then the floor.

"You look like a schoolgirl that's been caught out," Jane said, highly amused. "Go on then, how long?"

"That is absolutely none of your business," Sam replied coyly, raising one finger in mock-warning. She kept it light, she wasn't cross, but she was afraid of being overheard. Last day or not. "Look, I've got to go, but you saw __absolutely nothing,__ right?"

She really hadn't seen anything that could be gossiped and misconstrued. Only Sam and Dr Keogh walking back into the ED together, with very little distance between them. Jane tapped her nose with theatrical drama. "Nothing at all," she said lyrically. "Nothing. At. All."

* * *

Much later that afternoon, Dylan was passing the staffroom and cast a cursory glance through the door. He was astounded by the sight that he found. Sam was in the middle of the room, holding a baby in a white onesie, walking up and down with gently bouncing steps and occasionally turning in little circles. Although he couldn't hear her, her lips were moving: she was mumbling away to the baby without a care in the world.

He pushed the door open and stood in the threshold for a minute. Immediately, she stopped and looked at him with mild embarrassment.

"Now wouldn't that make a lovely picture?" he remarked. "The once child-phobic Dr Nicholls is converted."

"I was not __child-phobic__ ," Sam replied indignantly.

"No?" Dylan asked teasingly. He walked across the room before deciding to sit on a clear patch of the sideboard.

Sam rolled her eyes. "One rule for F1s, and another for registrars, is it? If I've been told off once for that, I've been told off a thousand times."

The baby grizzled a little and Sam considered her unhappy little face for a moment before she returned to wandering up and down the room. Maybe she should be back out in the department by now, but there was no-one else to take care of this baby and her situation was too unfortunate for her to continually be passed around like an unwanted parcel. Her name was Poppy; she was three months old and a miracle. The only survivor of a three-car RTC which had wiped out two whole families, and her own parents. Both parents were only-children and had no family in a position to suddenly take on a baby. Poppy had been passed between nurses and doctors and eventually to Sam, while they all waited for Social Services to take her away. Sam would be damned before she let this little girl not feel a small amount of love on this awful day.

Dylan saw Sam's face change from that glazed happiness so common in people holding babies, to one of deep-running sadness. In less than a second, she had fought back control of her emotions and was smiling at the baby again, chattering calmly to her as if nothing untoward was going on.

"What's the matter?" he asked. "A cloud's just passed across your face."

Sam frowned minutely, which could easily be interpreted as concentration, but Dylan knew her better. She stopped in front of him.

"It's just not fair," she replied. "This little one —" She lowered her voice until it was barely more than a whisper. "No-one wants her." Her voice returned to normal. "There is some distant family, but they're not interested."

"We can't profess to fix damaged families. We can't pretend to understand what's going on in other people's lives," he said softly.

"I know that. But there's a baby here with no-one to take care of her, and I met a young couple this afternoon who would have done __anything__ to keep their baby," she said passionately. She closed her eyes for a moment, the injustice of it all and the burned-out feeling of finishing her placement combining to force tears into her eyes.

Dylan's face fell; although he didn't quite understand the situation yet, he had a feeling he was about to, and he had a feeling he wouldn't like it. "You'll have to explain a bit more than that, Samantha. I can't read your mind, much as I'd like to sometimes."

Sam looked up at the ceiling. She pushed her tongue into one cheek and bit it for a few seconds. "Newly-wed husband and wife, twenty-eight and twenty-seven years old. She was eighteen weeks along and…" She sighed. "It was a traumatic miscarriage."

Dylan winced. "Aren't they all?" he asked gently. He hopped down down from where he was sitting and went over to Sam. He stood behind her, then put his hands on her shoulders. "It happens. There is rarely anything we can do to stop it. I know, that doesn't make it easier for them, and it doesn't make you feel any better, either."

She rocked Poppy again and looked into her beautifully innocent eyes before staring straight ahead. "I just… I never want that to happen to me."

There was silence between them. Then, Dylan gave up on discretion, gave up on worrying what people would think. He put his arms around her, carefully holding her underneath her hold on the baby looked up at him over Sam's shoulder and smiled. He sighed and hugged Sam tighter before letting go. She turned around to look at him.

"Poppy will be alright," he said. "The care system will find good people to look after her, please don't get yourself worried over that. The system worked for me." His words were met by Sam whipping around, wide eyes and an expression of surprise.

"I didn't know you were in care," she said straight away.

"It isn't something I tend to shout about," he said, shrugging. "I was a lot older than her, so it took a while, but it did still work out. Lovely little thing like her will have herself some foster parents quick as anything, I'm sure of it."

There was a knock at the staffroom door and a young woman walked in. Her hair was dyed red and tied in a neat ponytail. She wore a dark green dress and a black blazer; the lanyard around her neck, even from a distance, showed that she had come from Social Services. When she reached Dylan and Sam, she smiled with the polite restraint of someone who understood that it wasn't a smiling situation she was walking into.

"Is this Poppy Robinson?" she asked. Her accent was gently southern, home counties most likely.

"Yes," Sam replied. "You're the social worker?"

"I'm __Poppy's__ social worker, yes. My name is Alice Walker, if anyone in the department needs to get hold of me for any follow-up to this."

Sam was struck by the way that Alice met her worried gaze as if she knew what Sam would be feeling about all of this. "What will happen to her now?" She knew, more or less, but her mind was blank and she couldn't recall the process.

Alice held out her arms to take Poppy from Sam, so Sam handed her over. "She'll be placed with an emergency foster family tonight, and until we can find her a more permanent placement."

Yes, that sounded right. It was soothing to hear it all outlined and know for sure what would happen.

* * *

When Poppy had been taken away, Sam said something without thinking; it was a good thing she and Dylan were alone in the staff room.

"Maybe one day we'll have one of those of our own." She realised what she'd said as soon as the words left her mouth. Cheeks scarlet, she covered her face with her hands and stepped backwards. "Sorry, I shouldn't have said that — I'm sorry."

"Don't be," Dylan said, stepping forward to close the space she had created. He hugged her, surprised by the way her words had made him feel. "Maybe, one day, we will."

It was the first time they had ever discussed or even mentioned a shared future, one which went further than a registrar and an F1 sneaking about behind closed doors, further than working in different hospitals, further than her finishing her training and disappearing abroad with the army. He didn't want her to disappear, and it seemed that she didn't want to disappear from his view either.

* * *

Holby City ED, 27th December 2017

Lily arrived at the door of Ethan's office with grazed knees and hands, and embarrassment written all over her face. The snow, which had begun on Christmas Eve but not stuck until late on Christmas Day, had blanketed Holby and she had quite literally fallen foul of it.

Ethan looked up from his desk and opened his mouth slightly in surprise. "I had intended to ask you how your Christmas was, first and foremost, but what happened?"

"The snow happened," Lily said unhappily, coming into the office and closing the door behind her. "I slipped and fell. I know I should sort at least my knees out myself, but the palms of my hands are a terrible mess and I can't fix those by myself." She looked at her angrily red palms. Little beads of blood had emerged in uneven lines and patches.

"Sit down," Ethan said softly, gesturing to the sofa.

It was embarrassing and lovely in equal measure to have him take care of her.

* * *

"Is that alright?" he asked, having cleaned each of her four wounds and put plasters on both of her knees. "Obviously I can't cover your hands, a plaster would just fold and peel off. Gloves, today, I think."

Lily nodded. "Thank you," she said, flexing the fingers of one hand. She winced as this movement made the skin pull and sting. And then she smiled: Ethan picked up her hand, drew it carefully towards him and kissed the inside of her wrist, mindful to avoid the raw injury that spread up from the heel of her hand into her palm.

"So, I've told you about Christmas at my mother's," she said, "but what about here? How was yours?"

Ethan pursed his lips, thinking. "I've not had mine yet. I've not got a day off until the day after tomorrow."

"I would have thought that as Clinical Lead, you might have first pick of the days off!"

"Sadly not." He still cradled Lily's hand in his. He looked down and frowned unhappily.

Lily could tell that there was something on his mind. She raised her eyebrows in gentle inquiry when he eventually looked up.

"I didn't want the days off," he explained. "Not really. Although to be honest, I don't know which is worse, an empty house or being here. At least here… I felt close to Cal."

She squeezed his hand despite the discomfort it caused her. She wished he'd said something: if she'd had any idea that he was dreading Christmas like that, she would have taken him with her to her mother's, no question. "Have you been to see him recently? Sorry, the grave, I mean."

Ethan bit his lip. The grief that he worked so hard to keep locked away had such a common habit of spilling back out. "I haven't," he answered guiltily. "He loved this time of year, as well. I know it's morbid, but I did really want to go to the cemetery over Christmas. Just to check in with him."

"I don't think it's morbid at all." On this matter, Lily would not be swayed. "If… if you like, I'll go with you," she offered. "I know he didn't like me very much, but the offer stands," she added ruefully.

This raised a weak smile from Ethan. "He liked you plenty," he said.

Lily shook her head. "You're a terrible liar." But she smiled a little before standing up. When Ethan followed suit, she kissed his lips gently.

They were both ignoring the imminent response of the research team in Hong Kong. It was the worst kind of elephant in the room. They'd have to confront it eventually; they both knew that the team would neither say no, nor wait for her.

* * *

"Aren't you a little old for grazed knees?" Dylan asked when he noticed the large plasters covering Lily's knees just below the hem of her skirt.

"I thought so," she replied, "until I fell in the snow. My hands are just as bad."

"That explains the gloves, I was going to ask about those." He nodded at her covered hands.

Lily hummed in answer. "Did you get your quiet Boxing Day, then?"

Dylan's facial expression was one so unlike his usual mask that it took Lily by surprise. His eyes immediately warmed and the corners of his mouth very nearly turned up into a smile.

She raised her eyebrows. "That good?"

"It wasn't the day I had originally planned," he said sheepishly. Having spent so long either in silence or at war with Sam, a whole day's peace, while long overdue, had been entirely wonderful. He wondered how much he was prepared to say. "I spent it with Sam."

Lily's eyes widened and her jaw dropped involuntarily. Straight away, it was clear that this meant a lot to him. She didn't understand — hadn't the root of the friendship they had struck been that neither of them could stand the sight of Sam? Still, she had seen glimpses that perhaps this was no longer the case for Dylan, and obviously it was not, if the usually staunchly introverted consultant had given up his day of solitude. There was a lot she didn't understand about Dylan and Sam, and perhaps she never would. Perhaps it was enough that they seemed to make each other happy.

"So that was… good?" she checked cautiously, eager not to sound as though she was prying, but equally she was intrigued.

Dylan thought about the previous day: overwhelmingly peaceful and festive in the decent covering of snow, with its endless stream of wood for the fire and excesses of chocolate (neither of them could resist, although Dylan's gift from Zoe was safe from Sam as the latter couldn't think of anything worse than American peanut butter confectionery.)

"Yes," he replied thoughtfully. "It was good, although I suppose you're wondering how on earth that could have happened, considering the conflict between Sam and I that was still fairly raw as far as you knew!"

Lily's eyebrows furrowed in amazement. It was probably better not to ask how he seemed to have read her mind. It was probably all entirely predictable.

"When I had that time off," he explained, "there was a particularly bad episode of OCD, and for various reasons, she was that one that I called. I didn't know what else to do." He shrugged, at a loss for further explanation.

"You don't have to explain yourself to me," Lily said. "You trust who you trust, end of story. I'm glad that you had someone to call. For future reference, if you needed someone else to call, I would be there." She would happily be a back-up support system if she was ever needed. "Things are better now, aren't they?"

Dylan nodded. "The OCD is still obviously a feature. I think it always will be. But it's a more manageable one, at the moment." It wasn't easy to talk about his mental health where it could possibly be overheard, but it was even harder to talk about addiction in the same way. He lowered his voice and looked around for eavesdroppers before going on. "And I'm still sober. It's obviously the prime time of year for __everyone__ to be drinking, but… I just don't want to."

Lily thought for a moment about his reaction to spending a day with his ex-wife. "I suppose you have rather good motivation not to." She met his eyes and was relieved when he appeared to recognise what she meant.

* * *

Afternoon turned swiftly to evening. As watery sunlight gave way to December's inky darkness, lights outside glowed brighter than usual due to bouncing off the snow. Inside the ED, an inordinate amount of joy was had by all as word spread that Dylan had been left holding the baby, and not in the metaphorical sense. A house fire had hospitalised eight-week-old James and his mother, who had been admitted for further observation while her son had been assessed with a clean bill of health. While the department waited for James' father to arrive, pulled from a meeting twenty miles away, it lay to Dylan, who had been in charge of the small boy's care, to keep hold of him a while longer. He had protested that it should have been someone else's job — and maybe it should, but the appeal of seeing him squirm with responsibility was great enough that they could limp along without him. The department wasn't busy.

It was a long time since Dylan had done anything so hands-on with a baby, but it wasn't so bad. He could manage a bottle feed and knew the theory of burping a baby if not the mechanics. With paperwork outstanding and now a perfect excuse to sit and do it, Dylan looked down at his charge and raised his eyebrows.

"Are you going to be amenable to that?" he asked rhetorically. "I'm going to do my paperwork regardless, but it will certainly be easier if you don't create a fuss."

James made happy little gurgling noises, as though in attempt to talk back.

Things had evidently not worked out for Dylan in terms of fatherhood. His own father had been nothing short of abhorrent and fate had snatched Dylan's singular opportunity to do a better job himself. But this didn't mean that he disliked children. He just did not trust himself not to mess it up.

* * *

Sam did a double take when she saw Dylan standing at a computer, holding a baby. She hovered on the other side of the screen, waiting for him to look up. He raised his eyes very slightly at first, then relaxed his reflexive frown when he saw that it was her.

"Going to introduce me to your new friend, then?" she asked, looking down at the now-sleeping baby wrapped in a hospital-issue blue blanket and held securely in Dylan's left arm.

"The ED seems to be under the misguided impression that the responsibility would do me good. This also seems to be providing a good deal of amusement." He rolled his eyes. "This is James, eight weeks old, caught in a house fire this afternoon but somehow suffering no ill-effects whatsoever."

Sam smiled in response to his cool delivery of facts. A small laugh escaped her lips. "Keep handing over like that and anyone would you're after my job. We'll make a fair paramedic of you yet, Keogh!"

"Er, no, I don't think so," Dylan replied, tilting his head to one side.

"So why is James here __your__ charge, apart from the valid reason that everyone thinks it's funny?"

Dylan adjusted the blanket that had slipped over James' cheek. Still looking down at him, he replied, "the mother's been admitted and the father's not here yet." He looked up at Sam. "Someone had to hold the baby."

Sam's eyes twinkled. "Well, it would certainly make a __lovely__ picture," she teased.

He met her eyes warmly; smiling through his eyes only, as was his general preference.


	19. Chapter 19

**Many apologies for the massive hiatus. Third year of uni is proving difficult in more ways than one! Here is a good long chapter though, hope you enjoy :)**

* * *

Holby City Hospital, New Year's Eve, 2017

Dylan was struggling. His shift was due to end at seven-thirty that evening, but as the afternoon wore on, he felt himself losing control of his mind. It felt as though his brain was itching – too many thoughts, too many tabs open and none of them containing anything pleasant.

He thought that his unease might be partly due to the date. New Year's Eve, when it was expected that everyone would drink and enjoy it. He was deeply afraid of giving in to temptation and relinquishing the sobriety that he'd worked so hard to maintain. His critical mind was on high alert, reviewing every thought with a negative eye. Was he really going to relapse, or was it the fear of relapse that was making him feel so edgy and uncomfortable?

It did not help matters that everyone in the department who was not working tonight's night shift, was talking at every opportunity about the traditional ED trip to the pub to pass the New Year among friends. This was something that Dylan had never partaken in, of course. It had been a good few years now, since people had stopped asking him if he would be in attendance. But now, with his sobriety so sharp in his mind's eye, the talk of drinking and celebrating worked its way so deeply into his psyche that he started tapping things repetitively as an outlet to his wound-up thoughts. He tapped anything that was undetectable to others, while he felt that he was going mad all over again.

And then there was _the_ intrusive thought, the one that he was so hoping wouldn't come.

 _The only way to make it stop is to go with them and drink the new year into oblivion._

* * *

He was staring into space at seven o'clock, tapping the edge of a mug and feeling trapped in the painful silence of mental instability, when Sam walked over and appeared beside him so suddenly that it was as though she'd popped out of the ground.

"Okay?" she said.

Her falsely-breezy tone didn't fool him for a second; he knew at once that she was worried about him. It was strange, even knowing that she could tell all was not well, how automatic the reflex was to insist that he was fine. "Yes. I'm fine." But he couldn't match her nonchalance. His words were clipped and terse.

"Are you?" she pressed, looking him straight in the eyes.

Dylan had expected to be annoyed that she was so obviously trying to take his mental temperature by looking at him like that. But knowing that he had a free pass to be honest actually made him feel a little better. A little less alone, at the very least. He sighed. "Not really."

Sam stood a little closer to him, until their shoulders were touching. "Then don't say that you are. That's like me asking you your name and you saying 'Amy'; it's just not true, is it?"

Despite the tangled web of thoughts, Dylan expelled a brief syllable of derisive laughter. "Noted. I will not try and con you that my name has been Amy all along."

"Is there anything I can do, to… to make it better?" she asked, serious once more.

He shook his head. "No. I just…" His voice faded until he was practically whispering, humiliated by the intrusive thoughts doing their best to take over. "I don't want to start the new year drunk, Samantha. I can't escape it, the OCD is taking up my entire brain and the only way to make it stop – I don't want to drink."

"Then you're not going to," Sam said. Her voice was set in determination; she would not allow her heart to rule her head here. It broke her heart to hear him talk like that, but she would not let him fall on her watch. She'd let him slip through her fingers once before, but she cared too much now.

"That's a bold statement, I'm glad you think that –"

"– let me explain before you cut me down, hey?" Sam slipped her hand into his. No-one else would see, but she stroked the back of his hand with the pad of her thumb. "I finish at seven-thirty. Meet me on the corner?" Her eyes sparkled with the reminiscence although she still meant her support with the utmost seriousness.

Dylan was quick to question, however. "It's New Year's Eve, you'll have plans – you'll be joining everyone in the pub, you don't want to spend tonight keeping me sober."

"I wouldn't have offered if I didn't mean it," she said solemnly. She shrugged. "I'm getting a bit old to drink the new year away." She said it as though she'd always planned to. "And besides, you need me with you."

"Samantha, you don't have to do that."

"I'm not going to respond to _that_ ," Sam replied. "I want to help you. Please let me."

He squeezed her hand and bit his lip. He closed his eyes for a second. "Thank you," he murmured. "And yes," he went on in a small voice, "I think I do need you."

* * *

It was not the new year that either of them had planned, but it was one that carried a lot of meaning. The clock ticked towards midnight with Dylan perfectly sober and decidedly less anxious than he had been in the ED. Sam seemed to know him better than he knew himself – they were half-watching the television, but when he got too quiet she knew that the intrusive thoughts were getting too loud. She talked calmly in his direction until he talked back. It was accidental, at first, that their hands were interlinked, and then they deliberately sat a little closer. By the time they reached midnight, Dervla was curled up in her basket, snoring quietly, and Sam was leaning happily into Dylan's shoulder. They heard fireworks outside, bursting all over Holby, and watched the enormous display in London unfold on the TV screen. Sam sat upright again.

"So, New Year's resolution?" she said.

"It's been a very long time since I've bothered to set one of those," he replied, instantly uneasy as he wondered if he'd have to vocalise all the things he wanted to change.

"Oh, go on," Sam urged.

Dylan shook his head. "No, I can't think of one." He could, but there were just too many. He hoped she understood, that she didn't think he was being typically difficult.

"Alright," she said, leaning back on him gently. "Here's mine – to not mess _this – us –_ up." She pressed her lips briefly to his cheek. There was a pause, and she let out an unsteady breath. "Happy new year."

He nodded. "Happy new year." He wondered if he could choose her resolution too, over the ones swirling in his own mind. But New Year's resolutions were not the birthday cards for acquaintances that she would remember to buy and he would just put his name to. Still, it was a noble and desirable ambition.

* * *

King's College Hospital, New Year's Eve 2006

The rest of the F1s left the hospital at seven o'clock, when Sam's night shift had barely begun. It was entirely typical, she thought, that she'd be the one to draw the short straw and be the one stuck in work when all the others were preparing to party to their hearts' content. And it had not even been a metaphorical straw, either: they had physically gambled their shifts in the staffroom about two weeks ago. While Sam had been grateful of having Christmas day free to see her family (a gratitude which had rescinded as soon as she'd had to actually spend the day playing happy families) she now rather thought she would have preferred to work Christmas instead of New Year.

Of all the ED staff to be working tonight, the number _had_ to include her mentor, Dr Keogh. Even three months into the placement, he was still every bit as brash, straight-talking and occasionally downright rude as they day she'd met him. He was an enigma, but while his mannerisms pushed everyone else away, they only drew Sam closer to him. He had been admirable and professionally attractive from day one, but she hardly dared entertain the thought that she liked him as more than just a mentor. He seemed impossible to work out, and most people appeared to have given up, including the permanent members of the ED who had known him a lot longer than Sam had. But with every passing interaction, no matter how dismissive he became, she was becoming more and more eager to break his code. For some unknown reason, he had stiff walls built up and she was determined to break through them.

It had been a culture shock, and then suddenly natural, to _not_ shrink away from his more reckless comments. One of the F1s had already been reduced to tears by his frank assessment of her performance. Sam refused to buckle so easily. Atfirst she had remained silent, glaring to register her disagreement. In the last two weeks she had begun to answer him back, standing strong in the face of his exacting standards. The first time, she had wondered if he might obliterate her on the spot, or worse, refuse to mentor her anymore. But it seemed they had met an unspoken agreement, and she seemed to have earned a little bit of his respect.

* * *

When Dylan emerged from his office, he noticed her at once. She was watching wistfully as her peers gleefully escaped the hospital. Well, he _assumed_ she was wistful. She faced away from him, looking out of the front doors with one hand tangled in her wavy ponytail. As he walked over to her, the fiddling with her hair caused the Biro, perennially found behind her hair-tie, to slip out and bounce along the floor. He didn't hesitate to kneel and pick it up, before holding it out to her.

Sam blinked in slight confusion. Was he — was this him being kind to her? She plucked the pen from his grasp, muttered an embarrassed _thank you a_ nd put it back where it came from. She wondered if she was about to get a sharp comment for not paying attention. She could practically hear the words already — _I don't rate your chances of passable suturing if you can't even keep_ _a pen in your hair._

"This shift won't be so bad, you know?" he said quietly.

Sam's eyes widened.

"You don't have to look so surprised," Dylan went on. "I do have it in me to be civil."

She nodded at him, eyes sparkling.

He looked around. No-one else was listening. "It's not going to drag, I'll tell you that much. It's not the best shift; obviously we'd all rather be somewhere else. It'll be relentless, I warn you now, but to use the phrase that your lot are so fond of —" He rolled his eyes dramatically. " _It'll fly._ "

"My lot?" Sam said, raising her eyebrows. But she smiled a second later, and was totally bowled over when her mentor's eyes warmed and then for a moment, he smiled too. She was struck for a moment by the thought of people she had known at university who had gone on to study for a postgrad certificate in education. They had oft-cited some regularly-spouted teaching advice of not smiling until Christmas. She and Dylan had passed Christmas. One small smile could well be the snowflake that caused the avalanche. He certainly never smiled at anyone else.

* * *

Later, she was working alongside him in a cubicle when he made a comment to their patient that was just as cutting as ever. It didn't fill her with cold uneasiness; it amused her. When he shot her a nearly imperceptible glance that suggested he wanted her to be in on the joke, her soul warmed and her heart soared. She had liked him plenty when he had been relentlessly to-the-point and hell-bent on perfection. But she liked him an awful lot more, now.

* * *

Her assumption that he was no longer willing her to fail, made it vastly easier to have him observe her practice. When her challengingly inebriated patient had been treated, sutured and discharged, she looked to her mentor, desperate for his approval.

"How was that?" she asked hopefully. After his uncharacteristic softness earlier, she anticipated a mild compliment at the very least. But she saw his face, unchanged from his negative mask. She watched him shrug, heard a non-committal sound, and finally snapped. "I've had it!" she fumed.

Dylan recoiled: he shouldn't have been surprised by her tenacity but when it was directed purely at him, it was hard to take. "Samantha —" he acquiesced, but she wasn't finished yet.

"Don't call me that, I'm not happy," she said, frowning deeply. "I'm done. I'm done with trying so hard, only for you to never even look in my direction!" Sam covered her mouth. That shouldn't have been vocalised, not in a million years. That was lose-a-placement level of inappropriate. "I just want to be recognised when I don't mess it all up," she said, her voice fading into embarrassed insignificance.

" _Dr Nicholls,_ " Dylan said firmly. "I'm not going to talk about this here. We can continue this in my office, please."

Sam's stomach was turning repeated somersaults as they walked in silence to Dylan's office. It did not even register when a party of drunken revellers decided it was time to celebrate as if the clock had reached twelve, and set off a clutch of giant party poppers, sending cascades of paper streamers and confetti all over the place. She was for the chop, this was it. Her temper had blown it all, only three months into the year's placement. She couldn't shake the idea that she had a saving grace though: he _never_ said please, not to anybody. So why had he said it to her? Her unease was only made worse by his invitation for her to sit; this gave way to another brief silence that filled her head with all kinds of worries.

He rubbed his fingertips across his lips in contemplation. Unconsciously, Sam mimicked him exactly. Dylan inhaled steadily. "What did you mean, that you try so hard and I never look in your direction?"

But Sam just shook her head. He couldn't make her say it out loud, the way she felt about him despite his snippy comments and acerbic observation and the way he would not hesitate to call a spade a spade, no matter what the consequences.

He rested his hands on the desk and steepled his fingers, letting out a long breath. "Dr Nicholls, please." He bit his lip — he probably shouldn't have used her title there, but he had to try and keep some distance between them. If he was wrong about all of this, the last thing he needed was to make a fool of himself by breaking down too many barriers. "Why is it so important that you gain my attention?" He could barely believe that this conversation was happening, much less that it might not be _his_ stubbornness getting in the way.

Sam persisted to shake her head, and then his 'please' got into her head and she crumbled. "Look, I don't want to have this conversation. But you're going to throw me out anyway, so I might as well just come out with it." That as may be, she couldn't look at him as she spoke. She couldn't even look at his hands where they lay on his desk, electing instead to stare at her own while her cheeks grew warm. "I know, I really do, that what I'm about to say is not allowed. But I like working with you. I like… you. And I don't mean as a colleague or as my mentor."

"You're shaking," Dylan observed, filling the interim before he had to address what she'd said.

Sam mentally shook herself. "Yes, an admission that's going to end my placement has put me somewhat on edge, sorry," she replied bitterly.

"It's not going to end your placement," he said slowly. "I mean, it doesn't have to."

Her head snapped upright. "What?" She couldn't compute his remark. It didn't make sense. Of course she would have to go, this was all shades of wrong. Unless — "If this is you trying to get one up on me, Dr Keogh, if you're trying to set me up for a fall, if you're trying to… I don't know… just, don't. I don't appreciate it." She frowned unhappily.

Dylan looked wounded. "I'm not, Samantha. I promise I'm not trying to do any of those things." He sighed, hoping that she'd take his repeated use of her full name as the compliment that he meant it as.

"Then what are you trying to do, Dylan? Because I don't understand," Sam said plainly. She met his eyes for the first time in a while and was stunned to see such deep conflict there. They were usually full of disinterest, contempt or pure derision.

"Do you know why this is so difficult for me?" he asked.

Sam's reply was quick, short and a little sharper than it should have been. "Not a clue."

Dylan looked down at his hands, and for a second he squeezed his eyes shut. He steeled himself, ready for the inevitable fall. Then, he reached his hands out until they enveloped hers. There was a second's stunned silence as neither of them moved. He closed his fingers a little, until his action could only be construed as holding her hands, then looked up. "That's why."

She was aghast. Happily so, perhaps, but she could barely believe it at all.

"That's why I couldn't compliment you for your work," he went on. "That's why I couldn't be nice to you. If — if I got started, I wouldn't be able to stop. I… I like you too."

It was a response she could not have anticipated. It was the response she had wanted all along but had never dared hope for. Still, her gasp of surprise was genuine, audible and impossible to hide. "Don't get me wrong, I'm — I'm happy," she stammered. "But… this is against the rules, against _all the rules_ — I mean, what do we… how do we…"

Dylan shrugged, adrenaline coursing through his veins. He didn't know, but there was one thing that he did know. "I've never much been one for rules."

Sam smiled, breathing a sigh of relief. "Me neither," she whispered, a tiny smile playing on her lips. She adjusted her hands to return the hold that he had had. His hands were cooler than hers and infinitely steady, where hers were warm and quivering as a result of everything that had changed in the last sixty seconds.

* * *

They were walking back through the department when Dylan noticed the confetti stuck in her hair: a remnant, he supposed, of the party-goers earlier who had incorrectly gauged the time. He stopped, and stopped Sam too, narrowing his eyes. "There's something in your hair," he commented, glad of the excuse to examine her hair more closely, even out in the open.

Self-consciously, Sam ran her hand across the top of her head and down the length of her ponytail. She missed the brightly coloured paper shapes completely.

"Let me," he said firmly, reaching towards her. He paused with his fingertips just above her hair. "Is that alright? Can I… get it out for you?"

Sam thought for a moment, bit her lip and blinked hard. "Be my guest."

There was something bizarrely tender about that moment. They were surrounded by the very people they were going to keep their secret from, but while they remained all in the dark, this moment that felt so intimate to Sam would seem entirely innocent to any passer-by. She felt him pluck whatever it was from around the base of her ponytail and despite their surroundings, it was as though the whole world had stopped around them.

She cleared her throat as he held out the confetti to show her, before crumpling it in his palm and shoving it into his pocket, in the absence of a bin. "Thanks for that," she said, faux-calmly. "Wouldn't be any good to drag that around with me, when I'm trying to look like a decent doctor. Even on New Year's Eve."

"Even on New Year's Eve," Dylan agreed. He lowered his voice a little. "I'd think you'd be more than a decent doctor, with anything in your hair, for the record."

While her exterior remained cool, her insides glowed. "It's taken you three whole months, to tell me I'm good at this."

He raised his hands in front of him and raised his eyebrows ever so slightly. "I have to really like a person."

Sam rolled her eyes. _So it would seem,_ she thought, smiling inwardly and outwardly.

The red phone rang, snapping them both out of their moment. They whipped their heads around and watched as one of the nurses picked up the phone and began recording the information coming into the department. Sam winced as the woman's face fell a little before instantly returning to her set mask of determination.

The nurse, Piper, returned the phone to its cradle and made the usual announcement over the PA system. " _Adult male trauma call, ETA six minutes._ "

* * *

The patient was in a bad way. The worst that Sam had ever seen. Attacked in a club, the twenty-two year old had been beaten to a pulp, and as one final flourish, his attackers had glassed his face and neck. It was difficult to know what to tackle first: the very obvious external wounds; the potentially more dangerous internal bleeds; the very likely head injury; the broken ribs and resulting pneumothorax; the police waiting outside; or the patient's quickly mounting distress. Sam started eliminating things, but it was still a near-impossible task. The fact that she and her patient were a similar age, and judging by the university ID in his wallet, at a similar stage in life, made the task of treating him all the harder. For a few brief seconds, she wondered if he was also far from home, and therefore there was no-one to call in a close proximity to come and be with him.

"Can we chase up next of kin?" she said to anyone who would listen, so that she wouldn't have to think about this any longer. "Get in touch with his uni if you have to, find _somebody_."

Even if the dynamic between herself and Dylan had not changed so substantially in the time preceding this patient's arrival, she would have been grateful for his presence. Perhaps it was the knowledge that he wouldn't be quite so harsh with her that caused him to be such a levelling presence. But he seemed to trust her, only stepping in when she didn't have enough hands or available headspace to deal with everything.

Despite their hard work, several units of blood and three attempts with the defib, the young man died.

The world had felt like it had frozen around Sam before, but now, as she walked from resus in a daze, the world was travelling at hyper-speed while she was stuck as though walking through treacle. She covered her face with her hands before rubbing the back of her neck.

"Dr Nicholls, do you need to take a breather?" He stood right in front of her, just far enough back to not be all up in her personal space, but close enough that she would know he wasn't just paying her lip service.

Even though it was Dylan talking, even though she knew that in some capacity he cared about her quite a bit, she couldn't stop herself trying to lie to him. "No, I'm fine, I need to keep going." She was shaken and was determined to work through how she was feeling until it went away.

Dylan, however, had other ideas. "Too bad, we're taking ten minutes."

Sam allowed herself to be steered out of the Emergency Department and into the memorial garden. At least, she assumed it was the memorial garden. It was dark, and she still didn't know the rest of the hospital well enough to decide with any confidence that she knew where she found herself. She paced up and down the same five footfalls; the air was rising visibly in front of their faces every time they breathed and she had to keep rubbing her hands together to keep the feeling in her fingers.

"Right, that's enough, stop it," Dylan said, stopping her increasingly frantic pacing by holding her shoulders with a tenderly firm grasp.

"It's freezing out here," Sam protested.

"Good. It means we won't be disturbed and that this won't take longer than it needs to." But he did relent a little and shift his hands to rub the exposed tops of her arms as he spoke. "What happened in there –"

"– Don't stand there and patronise me by telling me I did my best and we did everything that we could. I don't want to hear it."

"I think I've learned over the last three months that to patronise you would be an exceptionally unwise decision," he said wryly. "But I wasn't planning to, anyway. What you saw in resus just now, that's about as bad as it gets. As bad as _civilian_ medicine gets, of course."

It was a good thing that it was dark. Sam damn-near blushed, deeply touched that he remembered from their very first meeting, what her aspirations were as soon as she'd qualified.

"You might not realise it now, or even at all, yet," he continued. "You managed it well. You managed _yourself_ well. Not every F1 could hack that, three months in. Look at me," he urged, desperate for her to really hear him. "I think you're going to be excellent, one of these days." He held each of her hands, glad when she gently squeezed his to show she appreciated what he'd said. "One of the best."

"Better than you?" Sam asked cheekily.

"Don't push your luck," he replied. Although he would never admit it aloud, his mind had silently replied: _I shouldn't wonder._

Sam blew out a long, brightly visible breath. She was calm, now. Ready to retake the shift. "Thanks for this," she said, nodding gratefully. Perhaps throwing herself into work to fight away difficult feelings wasn't always the way to handle things. That said, she couldn't foresee herself responding any differently, in future…

"You are very welcome. I'd do the same again, to stop you throwing yourself under the bus next time the going gets tough with a nasty case like that."

She looked away for a second. "What time is it?" she asked with genuine curiosity. She might have been trying to distract his attention away from embarrassing her with his sudden-onset kindness, but it was still New Year's Eve. The timing was important. She couldn't remember midnight passing; even though it felt far later than twelve, she couldn't recall the expected raucous celebration. She'd expected to feel the festivity, even in A&E.

Dylan checked his watch. "Nearly two," he said. He looked behind him, checking. "Happy new year, Samantha."

Sam rolled her eyes. She had expected to tire quickly of hearing her full Christian name, that she usually loathed to hear under any circumstances. But there was something different about hearing Dylan use it. Something that she liked, very much. "Happy new year," she replied, smiling. Either bravely or stupidly, she leaned in and kissed his cheek.

He blinked, stunned.

"New year's kiss." She shrugged. "We missed midnight, that'll have to do."

He also put a brief kiss on her cheek, and then all of a sudden their lips were touching and they were kissing properly, pent-up tension and feelings at long last recognised and released. It was only the threat of discovery which forced him to back away.

Sam's cheeks were flushed and her eyes bright. "Maybe not where we can be seen so easily, but I'd like to do that again."

A smile, so rare that it could be categorised as critically endangered, lit up Dylan's face.

"Come back with me, after the shift," he said impulsively. "It's New Year's Day. New beginnings, and all that."

There was a dead silence, so loud that his ears rang. Dylan's immediate and very real worry was that he had massively overstepped the mark. For a few seconds he thought he'd blown it all before it had even begun.

Sam bit her lip. When she ran the tip of her tongue over it, she tasted a tiny bead of blood. Her heart was thundering as she left his words hanging between them. Her indecision was pushing them apart, she had to say something. "I'm not saying no," she said, her words tangling together as they came out so quickly. "I'm saying that _I don't know._ " She clasped her hands in front of herself nervously, looking down at her interlocked fingers. "I will give you an answer. I promise. I just need to think. Don't hate me."

Dylan rolled his eyes in response, a faint smirk on his lips. It would be quite difficult, to hate her now.

* * *

Perhaps he had stopped Sam throwing herself into work in the aftermath of that resus case, but he could nothing about her slightly dodgy coping mechanism in response to his off-piste suggestion. He was in awe of her focus, while his brain felt completely scattered.

* * *

It was a crazy suggestion, one that she nearly refused.

Go back to Dylan's at the end of the shift? What she needed was sleep, and she highly doubted that that would be high on either of their agendas if they were behind the safety of a locked door. And yet it was a request she was drawn to, one that she could not possibly refuse. She caught his eye and made her way over to him under the pretence of paperwork that needed to be signed.

"The answer is yes," she muttered.

When he didn't reply, she wondered if she'd taken too long and he'd changed his mind. The silence he now offered her went some way to explain his distress in response to hers, earlier.

Her pen rolled off the top of her little pile of papers. Before she'd even registered that this had happened, Dylan had picked it up and pressed it into her hand that was below the level of the desk in front of them. His hand lingered around hers for around three seconds. Half a lifetime, and yet it still ended far too quickly.

"Meet you on the corner?" he said out of the corner of his mouth.

"Which one?" Sam whispered. This secrecy business was far too complicated, and they hadn't really even started it yet.

Dylan sighed and rolled his eyes, thinking. "The one with the postbox. Five minutes away."

Sam nodded, her eyes still trained on the paperwork then. She raised her voice back to a normal level. "That sounds about right, Dr Keogh. I just need a signature on this one and then we're done here." She disguised her pleasure with an expertise she didn't know she possessed.

* * *

 _Dylan bit his lip when her hands touched his bare skin. This was every kind of wrong; they could get into so much trouble. Trouble for himself was something that barely registered on his radar, but to get her into trouble was something he could not live with himself for. "Sam – are you sure – is this… is this what you want?"_

 _Her eyes were wild and mocking, her cheeks flushed. "Do you need it in_ writing _?" she asked. "Of course this is what I want."_

 _He was terrified of falling in love with her because he was terrified of turning into his father. And yet he couldn't help it, she was just so beautiful, and just so… Sam._

* * *

They had woken up after lunchtime of New Year's day, blissfully happy. All thoughts of being found out and this going hopelessly wrong were forgotten. There was too much to be cheerful about.

"So, is this how you treat all of your particularly promising F1s?" she asked when he'd made two mugs of coffee and a mountain of toast.

Her mild self-deprecating arrogance was amusing to him. He rolled his eyes and tilted his head slightly to one side. "Well, obviously," he replied, hoping that his tone did enough to explain that this was so far outside of his normal, he'd almost forgotten what his normal looked like.

Sam made an expression of mock-disgust and looked down into her mug, unable to hide her smile. "At least you make good coffee."


	20. Chapter 20

**After an extremely long hiatus, I'm back with another chapter! The final year of teacher training is difficult to say the least... But I'm still passionate about this story, it will get told eventually!**

* * *

Ireland, April 2009

The carriage that Dylan and Sam chose, in the train back up to Belfast, was practically deserted. At the furthest end, an elderly couple from Derry were reading quietly, their knees touching. A few rows away, a twenty-something student with dark hair and a Breton-striped t-shirt was typing furiously on a laptop encased in sunny yellow silicone.

Dylan and Sam had commandeered four seats around a table. At first they each took a window seat, their rucksacks beside them. But Dylan could see unease building in her eyes after a while, and he got up, lifting her bag with ease into his now-vacant seat. He took up the seat next to her. Reaching carefully for her left hand, he kissed the engagement ring, the newest mark of their love.

It wasn't difficult to guess what had so quickly brought down the shutters on her prior joy and excitement. Her tour was approaching; they were both acutely aware of this. Dylan wondered if he'd done the wrong thing after all, in proposing to her now, filling her head when he knew she wanted to focus on her impending departure. She'd been so happy, until only a few minutes ago.

"Samantha, what are you thinking about?" he asked, his voice perfectly discernible although hardly more than a whisper.

At first, Sam just shook her head. She couldn't explain it – she didn't _want_ to explain it.

"Let me in, please," he half-begged. He was very aware of their limited remaining time and his usually poor listening skills.

"It's been a busy few days; it's all catching up with me." The lie came so easily. She sat a little lower in the seat, resting her head on his shoulder as the train hurtled through an increasingly rural landscape.

Dylan nodded sympathetically. "Look, we've got some downtime now, I think the best thing would be for you to try and get some sleep." He retained his hold on her hand, stroking little circles on the back of it with his thumb.

Sam accepted his suggestion and gazed out of the window, her hand locked around his. They were silent; she soon fell into a brief and unsettled sleep, unsettled because she was plagued by a horrific nightmare.

* * *

 _She was standing at the edge of their living room in Thiepval Barracks. She was watching Dylan intently: she'd never seen him so distressed. She'd already tried speaking to him, but it was obvious that he couldn't see or hear her. All she wanted was to take his hurt away, but when she didn't even know what was wrong and she could not interact with him, she didn't know how this would be possible._

 _He clutched a stack of letters in his hands, desperately clinging to them. From the way they were creased, she wondered how long he had been holding them. She made her way over to him; her movement was a strange kind of glide because she wasn't touching the floor. Sam rested a hand on his shoulder that he couldn't feel and peered at the letters. The sight of them made her breath catch in her throat. They were blueys that he'd obviously tried to post out to her in Afghanistan, but each one was stamped with 'return to sender' with no explanation as to why. A fleeting thought appeared in her mind, but it was nonsense – he was her next of kin, he would_ _ **know**_ _if anything had happened to her over there, he wouldn't just have his letters returned without explanation._

 _There was a knock at the front door, and she followed Dylan out of the room and down the hall. It was two of their friends, one in army uniform as he'd just returned from deployment and his wife in her usual clothes – if Sam remembered rightly she was a teacher in a tiny primary school a few miles away. They saw Dylan's tear-streaked face but their own expressions remained perfectly neutral. This was all wrong: the two of them were usually very expressive. In training, Jack, another medic, had kept everyone amused with spot-on impressions of everyone from politicians to celebrities to colleagues. His wife, Emily, was one of those people whose very aura screamed that she was a highly empathetic, kindly primary teacher. Neither of them had it in them to see someone so upset and just ignore the situation entirely._

 _"_ _What?" Dylan spat grumpily, furious that in front of him potentially stood evidence that all was not well with Sam._

" _Just checking that your letters had been returned," Jack replied, smirking._

 _Sam wanted to leap through Dylan and throttle her so-called friend. Why couldn't he say something useful? Why was she suddenly glued to the spot? When she held up her hands in front of her face, their image was distorting and blurring, as if she was… disappearing. Her engagement ring was nowhere to be seen._

 _And then it dawned on her, the reason why Dylan's letters would have been returned._

" _Where is she?" Dylan pleaded, changing tack from his gruff greeting. "Why hasn't she come home?"_

 _Sam felt a lump rise in her throat. She tried again to move forwards, wanting to wrap her arms around her fiancé, but some irresistible force held her back._

" _Emily," she rasped, almost unable to push the words out. "Please tell him, I know you know. How can you stand there and see him like this? Tell him," she begged, "because I can't. Please." It was no good though. Emily stood, completely unflinching, oblivious to what Sam had said. The force that had frozen Sam suddenly released her, and she slammed a fist into the wall. Or, she would have done, if her blurry fist didn't simply sink through the wall as if the wall didn't exist. Or perhaps it was her hand that didn't exist. Sam howled in frustration. "JUST TELL HIM!" she shouted, to no avail whatsoever._

 _Jack spoke again, and the smug tone of his voice turned Sam's stomach. "Can't tell you anything, Dylan."_

" _Why not?!" Dylan exclaimed. "I'm her next of kin, if anything has happened I should be the first to know – why do I feel as though there's a colossal secret?"_

 _Emily's resolve faltered, and her face fell. For a moment, Sam hoped that this sudden show of her true colours might be enough for her to let loose the secret that was causing Dylan so much pain. "Because there is one..." she mumbled._

" _Emily, no, you can't! Next of kin means nothing if you're not married –"_

" _YOU LIAR!" Sam shouted. No-one reacted, and tears threatened in the corners of her eyes as she realised that her greatest fear was unfolding in front of her. Since asking Dylan to be her next of kin, she had dreaded the idea that perhaps their relationship not being as solid as that of others might get in the way of information being delivered._

 _Seeing Dylan cry tore Sam's heart in two. His shoulders heaved and she leapt forwards to hold him as Jack and Emily turned and walked away. But her dream-existence was not a physical one: he didn't know she was there and couldn't feel the love she was trying to show him. Both their heads whipped around when the television in the living room sprang to life. She let him go, and followed him to see what was happening._

 _A BBC news broadcast had appeared on the screen. A sombre newsreader announced that it had been one of the bloodiest weeks in the whole period of conflict in Afghanistan. A grotesque number of soldiers across all ranks had been injured or killed. Sam winced, and could hardly bring herself to look at the screen. She closed her eyes and gritted her teeth, willing it to be over. The sounds began to distort, and when Sam opened her eyes she could barely make out the television. She glanced down and saw that her whole body was fading._

" _No," she murmured, "I don't want to go, please."_

 _The newsreader shuffled their papers and cleared their throat. Sam thought the story was about to change, but it was about to get much worse._

 _"_ _One such fallen soldier is Major Samantha Nicholls, from the Royal Army Medical Corps. She was killed by an improvised explosive device while out on a routine operation caring for local people. Her family have been informed, and have shared these images of Major Nicholls."_

 _Sam clapped a hand over her mouth, not sure if she was going to be sick. Could she even be sick, in this fading, ghostly state? She couldn't see much now, but she could make out her photographs on the screen, from her childhood to university to her first in army uniform, and then footage of a flag-draped coffin being unloaded at Brize Norton, was overwhelming. Her throat ached, and the loudest thought in her head was that there was one important person who had not yet been informed._

 _He couldn't hear her, but she still choked out, "Dylan, I'm sorry."_

 _Dylan, who had been silently transfixed by the screen, suddenly let out a sound like a wounded dog. He fell onto his knees, shaking with grief. Tears leaked from Sam's eyes and she turned away, unable to look at him any longer. It pained her to see him like this, but anger boiled over inside her. Why had no-one told him? Why had her wishes about next-of-kin not been respected? How had everything gone so wrong?_

* * *

Sam woke up with a gasp, her heart beating many times faster than it should. She was still on the train, still beside Dylan, still heading back up to Northern Ireland after their beautiful few days in Dublin. She sat bolt upright, breathing heavily and reaching for his hand, which she had dropped at some point in her slumber.

"Sam? Samantha?" Dylan said gently, his voice full of concern. "Are you alright?"

She took a deliberately slow breath and mentally shook herself. "Yes. Bad dream, that's all."

He frowned sadly. "Anything I can do? I know there's probably not – just – I'm here."

"Believe me, just to know you _are_ here and you're okay, that's enough." She squeezed his hand and sat back in her seat. The intensity of the nightmare began to fade but she could not shake the image of dream-Dylan falling to pieces in front of her, or the reason for that.

"Are you sure?" His eyebrows furrowed as his sorely lacking social graces scrabbled about for the appropriate response.

"Hmm," Sam hummed in agreement. "Actually, no – I know what I want." The idea had jumped into her mind fully-formed; she couldn't let it go when it was the perfect solution.

Dylan leapt at the opportunity. "What is it? Whatever it is – "

"Let's get married," Sam said quickly. "Soon."

"What?!" Dylan's mouth fell open in surprise.

"I want to get married. In Northern Ireland. Before the tour."

"That's very soon." It was all he could say – they'd only been engaged for a matter of hours, and although he wanted to marry her as soon as possible, he hadn't envisioned it all happening so quickly. In any case, they were due to leave Thiepval Barracks for Catterick Garrison in less than a month's time. Packing up their entire life so far, what little they had, didn't make for an ideal time to plan and have a wedding.

Sam sighed. "I know it is. Just… please. I'm going to be away a long time, and if anything happens..."

"It won't," he replied firmly, although at her words it was as though the bottom had fallen out of his stomach. It was the one promise that he couldn't make to her. He shifted in his seat so he was facing her properly and reached for her shoulder furthest from him, to gently pull her to face him. He tapped her shoulder with his fingertips as he looked deep into her eyes. One tap for every hour they had been engaged, but she wouldn't recognise this, luckily.

" _If anything happens,_ " Sam repeated gently, "I don't want you to be the last to know." She turned away from him, ashamed of the lump in her throat, and rested her head on the train window.

Dylan sat back and pushed his head against the seat, staring at the ceiling. "If that's what we have to do to make sure that doesn't happen," he said, projecting an air of levelness without feeling it in the slightest, "then that's what we'll do."

* * *

Holby, January 2018

Lily was due in work at eight o'clock, for the night shift, but there were more pressing matters to be addressed beforehand. Namely, accompanying Ethan to the cemetery where Cal was buried. It was about five o'clock when they arrived, but it was already very dark, making it tricky to navigate the headstones.

She took a couple of steps back when she realised that they had arrived at Cal's grave. It had been her assumption that Ethan had brought her only out of politeness, after it being her suggestion in the first place that he didn't have to go by himself. But he reached out and took her by the hand, his anxiously cold skin clutching her needily.

"I can't do this alone," he said simply.

And so Lily stood beside him, as he stood over the stone marked with Cal's name and dates of birth and death. It was no easy task, feeling Ethan quiver next to her and being caught up in the emotion of the experience herself. What happened to Cal was so grossly unfair; although she hadn't often seen eye-to-eye with him it couldn't be denied that the department was missing something in his absence. His infectious energy and (generally) useful impulsivity could not be replaced.

"Cal," Ethan whispered, looking down at the frosty grass, "I'm here. I – I didn't come at Christmas, I couldn't, you know what the ED is like. Not even Clinical Lead can escape the rota… I just – I wanted to check in with you, you'd think I was being too sentimental, but..."

"Ethan, stop trying to make less of how you feel," Lily said firmly. "I'm not trying to tell you off, but it might be a better release for you if you let yourself be honest. If it makes it easier, I'll wait in the car so you can just let it out. But you need to stop judging yourself so harshly." She paused. "You are allowed to grieve."

Ethan shuffled on the grass, his footsteps crunching in the frost. He pulled his hand away from Lily's, and covered his mouth with both hands. He breathed out forcefully, little tendrils of visible breath snaking out between his fingers, and pushed his hands into his pockets. "I don't want you to go," he admitted in a choked voice. It was only moments before his emotions overcame him, he knew.

"Then I will stay right here. It's okay. You're okay," she said reassuringly. With his hands in his pockets, she couldn't hold either of them, but she linked her right arm around his left, to signal that he was not alone in this.

Ethan let out a stifled cry. "I'm not okay!" he said, as the threatening tears finally made their appearance. "I miss my brother! I shouldn't have to stand here and talk to his grave, he should still be alive! It isn't fair!" Hot teardrops rolled down his cheeks.

Lily pressed her lips tightly together. Her throat hurt and her body tensed. "It isn't fair," she agreed at last. "It shouldn't have happened, and you've every right to be upset." Her voice gave way and she hiccuped a little. "But it is what it is. You have to find a way to carry on, despite it all."

"Why does it have to be so hard to want to do that?" His voice was weak and small.

"I felt exactly the same way after my father died. It's awful, and it feels like it's going to completely consume you. But it gets better. It will always be there, _he will always be with you_ , but you will find a way to live without him." She stepped in front of him and hugged him, holding him together in a moment where he obviously didn't feel together at all. "You will be alright, I promise."

Ethan leaned against her and looked over her shoulder, back at Cal's headstone. "Happy new year, Caleb," he mumbled. "I… I miss you, but we're doing okay."

Blinking back tears, Lily agreed. "Yes, we are. You're not forgotten, Cal."

"Never," Ethan said, with great finality.

* * *

Back at home, Lily had an email waiting for her, from the research team in Hong Kong. Her mouth went dry as she read the subject line. **RE: 2018 Research Post Application.** She couldn't click it fast enough, but as soon as she had, she screwed her eyes shut. Simultaneously she wanted to know and wanted nothing to do with it. There would never be a good time to find out, but right before a night shift? She knew that if she didn't check, her mind would be elsewhere for the whole evening. It was no good.

She opened her eyes.

And let out a frustrated sigh.

By 6pm the following night, the successful candidate would have their answer. The position was to begin a week later. Lily covered her face with her hands, leaning down on her little kitchen table. A week, to pack up an entire life?

* * *

Far be it for Dylan to be the proverbial pot calling the kettle black, but something had to be done about Lily. There was something on her mind, affecting her to a point that she was tetchy, short-tempered and downright mean to almost everyone in the department. And unfortunately, the frame of mind she was in, he fully expected her to bite back when he found the time to address whatever was wrong.

"Everything alright?" he asked, caution clear in his tone as he followed her out into the waiting area.

Lily whirled around; her reply was sharp, as though the last few months had not happened and Dylan was the same as every other person in the ED – ready to mock and wind her up even further. "Yes, of course I am!"

"Are you sure about that?"

"Yes! I wish everyone would stop with the false concern!" she said exasperatedly.

Dylan scowled. "Well maybe if you stopped shouting everyone down and being wholly unpleasant, then they would stop!" He winced: the hypocrisy was far worse out loud. But Lily, startled by his frank response, seemed not to notice. "And," he went on, careful to be a little kinder, now that he had brought her back down to earth with a nasty bump, "you ought not to assume that all of the concern is false."

Lily crumbled, folding with the shame of realisation. She _couldn't_ go on for a whole shift like this. She wasn't the most popular to begin with but her chances of ever climbing that ladder had probably been irrevocably reduced over the last few hours. She sank heavily into an unoccupied seat and let her shoulders fall, displaying her disappointment. "I'm sorry," she mumbled and looked down at her lap.

At that moment, the front doors burst open and the paramedics pushed in a critically ill patient.

Dylan sighed. "There's no point apologising to me; it's a moot point when I'm the worst offender for taking out every situation on other people. Come on, we'll deal with this later, there's work to do." He looked over to the patient being wheeled in, and caught Sam's eye. Sam raised her eyebrows in question, and he nodded, taking half a step towards her.

"You don't have to sort me out, I'll be fine," Lily insisted, shaking her head.

"No, I do, it's about time to return the favour, I think." He held out a hand, pulled Lily to her feet and made her walk in front of him into resus. She was like Sam in that her favoured method of distraction was ploughing into work; this was one thing that he could help with.

* * *

The patient was not a simple one and by the time they were finished, both Lily and Dylan were in dire need of five minutes in which their brains were not firing on all cylinders. A wish which was not granted, of course. It was another three hours before they both found themselves temporarily free, drinking coffees as quickly as the heat would allow – there was no knowing if or when they'd be disturbed and unable to finish them.

"So," Dylan began, "returning to our previous conversation, it's time for me to return the favour of asking what's going on. I know you're hardly Little Miss Sunshine but tonight you seem to be in the running for least likeable in the department. A position which is undeniably mine, thank you very much."

Lily wrapped both hands around her coffee. Her closely guarded secret was about to become less so. She suspected it might be a weight off her shoulders, but that didn't make it easier to confess. "I've applied and interviewed for a research post in Hong Kong," she said simply. "I'll find out tomorrow, if I've been successful."

It was a surprise to hear those words come from Lily's mouth, but Dylan didn't show it. "That's enough to send anyone's stress through the roof. It'd be an excellent opportunity."

She cringed. "I know. The waiting is just a formality though, they already told me that the position was mine, really. It's just… now it's so certain, I'm almost sure that I don't want it."

Dylan raised his eyebrows. He was about to launch into telling her she'd be a fool to turn down something that would be so good for her career, when she continued.

"My mother is already preparing for me to leave – something like this, it was exactly what my father wanted for me." Her expression was so conflicted. She'd always thought that she wanted only to make her father proud. But now, other things seemed more important. Choosing the place that made her happy rather than successful seemed like a far better idea. Could she live with herself for choosing the place that turned her into a better person, rather than one that might make her a better doctor? "Nobody here wants me to stay, anyway – almost nobody," she corrected. " _Especially_ with how I've behaved lately." She'd talked too much already, but she was still reasoning it all out to herself; it was the first time she'd even tried to make sense of it all. "I _should_ go. It's good for me. I'd be stupid to turn them down. _They_ won't want me to turn the post down." She took a long drink of coffee, before apologising to Dylan. "Sorry… that's all… quite a lot," she said, embarrassed.

"If you've not talked about all of that with anyone else, and I'm assuming that you haven't, then I think it was actually rather succinct," he contested. "If you want my opinion, though, then you shouldn't do it just for feeling obligated to. Don't move halfway around the world because other people think that you should. It's an excellent opportunity, obviously, but not –" He faltered a little. "Not if it's going to make you unhappy."

Lily's conflicted feelings were not fading. If anything, they were tangling further. "But –"

" _But_ nothing. It's an enormous decision, but you're completely in control of your influencing factors. _You_ have to decide what's important."

Briefly silenced by this advice, Lily nodded and stood up from the staffroom table. "Th-thanks," she stammered. Somehow, the blur was beginning to clear.

* * *

Sam's voice filled Dylan's ears as he left after his shift, the sun beginning to peek over the hospital. "Well, well, well, Dr Phil, when did you change your specialism from Emergency Medicine to general counselling?"

Dylan's eyes rolled like marbles. There was no point asking exactly _how_ she knew. She had eyes everywhere, no doubt. He turned to face her, walking clumsily backwards away from the hospital. "Shut up," he replied, allowing himself a small smile.


	21. Chapter 21

**I don't think there's any point in me apologising for the hiatus between chapters - unfortunately it sort of became habit because real life became infinitely more important. However, if I have any readers left at all, I hope you enjoy this new instalment. x**

* * *

Northern Ireland, April 2009

"What's this, the unstoppable Sam Nicholls, nervous?"

"Oh behave, Dylan," she retorted sharply, "it's not as if you're a radiator for serenity yourself."

It wasn't meant to be like this. It was the morning of their wedding, and in thirty minutes, they would be going their separate ways to make final preparations and make their separate journeys to the registry office. It would be the start of something wonderful, they were both sure of it, but at that moment a crisp silence hung in the air and they were about as far from 'wonderful' as it was possible to be.

* * *

 _"_ _ _You don't understand, Dylan!" It was proving impossible to voice her concerns - and perhaps over breakfast when neither of them were particularly early birds, was not the best timing. "It's too complicated - of course I want to go,__ ** _ _ **obviously**__** _ _it's what I want. But that doesn't stop it being a frightening thing! It's never been as black and white as you want to see it!"__

 _ _Dylan remained silent: he could sense that Sam had more to add, and equally, he didn't know what to say. He returned to his toast and eyed Sam's coffee. This brewing conversation was clearly what had made her too unsettled to eat anything for breakfast.__

 _"_ _ _I know I've insisted all along that nothing's going to happen, that I'll just come home in nine months' time and be exactly as I am now. But…" She sighed frustratedly. "You'll stop me going if I'm too honest — why does the blunt truth have to be the only thing that gets through to you?!" She raised her eyebrows for a moment. "I might be the same when I come back, or… I don't know… just… Afghanistan takes ordinary people, chews them up and spits them out." She couldn't voice her greatest fears - that she wouldn't come back at all, or that she'd come back and not be the woman that he fell in love with. There were some things that just couldn't be said out loud when you were weeks from flying into a warzone.__

 _"_ _ _You're not ordinary, Sam. Never have been," Dylan said, clutching at straws and hoping he had made the right decision.__

 _ _Sam frowned and stared into space. She'd heard too many testimonies, first-person and scarily detailed. One dated as far back as secondary school so she'd had a lot of time to think it over: a close friend's father had never been quite the same after returning from Iraq.__

 _ _Sensing her unease, Dylan continued, his voice a firm, low kindness. "You are extraordinary, Sam Nicholls, and nothing could ever change that. You're something special. I think - I think we might be something special too." He stretched a hand out across the table so his fingertips just brushed hers. "Samantha," he persisted.__

 _ _She looked up, the corners of her eyes creasing at the sound of her full name. She tilted her head to one side slightly. "Alright," she mumbled. "Alright."__

 _ _He watched her build her defences back up again, and in a matter of seconds her lapse into vulnerability was a distant memory. Sam had seemed to brush herself down and silently tell herself that that was the end of it. She stood up from the table, turned and poured herself a bowl of cereal. Dylan smiled, although with her back to him, Sam would never see.__

* * *

Dylan sighed and watched Sam rushing about, furiously searching for something. It was so normal of her, to display her stress through frantic activity. But that didn't make it any easier to see — and he was sure she must have noticed some of his anxious tics making an appearance. It was strange, or perhaps not so, that they could present such unbreakable images of stoicism to the outside world, while intimately recognising each other's vulnerability in times of pressure.

"I don't want to fight with you, not today," he said by way of apology.

Sam made a noise of approval to show she'd heard, but continued rooting through her scattered and disorganised belongings, tipping her make-up bag upside-down in her moment of stress.

"What are you looking for?"

"Earrings." Her reply was to-the-point, but soft enough.

He did not speak, but Dylan calmly made his way over to a seemingly random cardboard box in the middle of a small pile by the bedroom door. He removed it from the pile and opened it on the bed, carefully moving things around until he found a red satin box, which he held out to her. It was a very good peace offering.

Sam's face broke into a relieved smile. "How..?"

Dylan shrugged. "I remembered seeing it. I should have told you last night, it would have saved you the stress this morning, but —"

He was interrupted by Sam kissing him.

"You're welcome," he mumbled.

"I love you," she whispered. "Are you — do you have everything you need, for today?"

"Careful, you're sounding like your shy-student self, there," he teased lightly.

"Stop it." She wasn't cross; her cheeks warmed at the memory. It was a joy to feel his hands on her face and his lips on her forehead, and to know that after today, they would always and officially be Dylan And Sam. Both Keoghs, on paper at least; she wouldn't adopt her new name in her professional life.

* * *

Sam had never seen herself as the sort of woman to be excited by getting married. She'd never imagined she'd be one to have butterflies running amok in her stomach, but there they were, with all the accompanying nerves. Nor had she expected to find such solace in turning her engagement ring around and around her finger. But that had become habit, deeply ingrained since the first day she'd worn it – which, in the grand scheme of things, was not very long ago at all, as wedding timescales usually went.

Three weeks, that was all. Three weeks, between Dylan's proposal in Phoenix Park and a hastily put together but nonetheless meaningful wedding in Belfast's registry office.

* * *

The rush before the wedding had pushed them almost to breaking point; it had been chaotic to say the least. Already, they were practically living out of boxes because the move to Catterick was so close. And yet somehow they were both here, immaculately turned out, against all the odds.

They had pulled in favours as far as they could, and when these had failed Sam had laid their situation on thick and played for sympathy in order to get things done. It had amused Dylan greatly, to observe Sam's shameless use of their situation to get what she wanted. And he was powerless to argue against it, seeing as it was her hard-earned sympathy votes that had led him to stand there in precisely the suit he'd wanted, and her to be in a dress that fitted her exactly, despite the impossibly quick turnaround. Sam had felt very guilty at first, but it had all paid off, and the wicked sparkle of amusement in Dylan's eyes had softened the blow each time she had successfully played the role of desperate fiancée in need of a wedding pre-deployment.

Even the date of the wedding had been painstakingly negotiated and nearly hadn't been possible at all. They had been on standby, ready to put Operation Marriage into action with three days' notice at any time. Luck must have been on their side — a date had become available with a whole week's notice, a luxury they had not expected to be afforded.

* * *

It was a family-less wedding, something which hadn't come as much of a surprise and was probably more shocking to the tiny group of guests than it was to either Dylan or Sam. Dylan's remaining parent wasn't worth inviting, and neither of Sam's parents approved. Therefore, family-less wedding, and much happier for it.

It was a good job too, that Sam had mentally made peace with Emily and Jack after their role in her nightmare on the train, or the group of guests would have been even smaller than its minuscule eight.

Luckily, the rain held off; as they emerged from the registry office, a single sunbeam broke through the clouds, glinting off the subtle shimmer in the bodice of her dress. She reached out and caught a few flimsy confetti shapes before they settled on the damp pavement.

Dylan smiled. "You and your sentimentality," he said, knowing precisely her plans for the confetti: the shoebox whose bottom was layering slowly with little reminders of times gone by.

"Oh, shut up," she retorted, rolling her eyes.

"Or what?" he teased, "you're stuck with me now."

"And I wouldn't have it any other way," Sam said, meaning it more than she'd ever meant anything. She pushed her little handful of confetti into the pocket of his suit jacket and rested her hand where his neck met his jaw, her fingertips just skimming his ear. She stood a little taller on her high heels and delicately touched her lips to his.

He pulled her close to him and kissed her. It didn't matter that in seven weeks she would be deployed overseas. In that moment, the only thing that mattered was that they were together __now__ , and nothing would pull them apart.

* * *

Holby, January 2018

"Dylan?!"

An uncomfortable prickle of embarrassment radiated outwards from Dylan's spine, enveloping his whole being in shame. Of all the people he hadn't wanted to see him, Sam was at the top of the list.

She walked quickly over to him and stood beside him, leaning against the wall in her paramedic uniform. She could afford him the time to work out exactly why she'd found him outside the ED while he was meant to be starting a shift. But there was no need to ask. She could hear his breathing, hear his concerted effort to force it back to normal. "Don't say it," she insisted, "don't tell me that you're fine."

"Alright. I won't."

He was the same old closed book that she hadn't seen for a while. Still, she persevered with him. "I'm not on duty yet, I can stay if you like." She wanted to do something useful - and she wasn't yet prepared to divulge precisely how she knew some of the right things to say in this situation.

"You don't have to," Dylan replied quickly. He didn't want her to spend all her time checking that he had not spiralled downwards again. She had a future ahead of her, she always had had a shining potential and he couldn't understand why she wasn't climbing the ladder, doing bigger and better things than taking care of Holby's mess once again.

"No, but I __want__ to." She was firm and would not be swayed. "Besides," she added carefully, "you're not alright at all, are you?"

Dylan dropped his gaze, forcing steady breaths of cool air in and out of his lungs. He knew that she would be spotting some of the same signs that he had displayed that night on the boat, even though they were months after that, now. It was humiliating — he had been making progress, decent progress at that. At the very least, he was not tempted to silence it with alcohol any more, but that didn't ease his agitation one bit.

There was no explanation for it, tonight. He'd woken up for this night shift after a fitful sleep, with a crushing sense of impending doom. It seemed to sit on his shoulders, a dull ache that could perhaps be worked around but never ignored. And a constant newsflash banner interrupted his thoughts, a never-ending subtitle that Something Bad Was Coming. It was unshakeable, inexplicable, exhausting.

He didn't have to say a word for Sam to know. He glanced up at her for less than a second, but his eyes gave him away. Squeezing his hand, she muttered, " _ _but you're here, that's what counts.__ "

He dropped her hand like it was burning hot, bristling inside. He couldn't cope with this. It was nonsensical to say they were moving too fast — their lengthy separations when it seemed that some feelings at least had remained unchanged, meant that they could not move any slower if they tried. If he rejected her now, after the restorative effort they had put in, then he might as well extinguish all heat under the proverbial barely-simmering pot. But the fact remained: the loudest thoughts in his head were driven by OCD, not the voice of reason and certainly not by Sam. He could not stop himself thinking that she pitied him, she wanted to save him. And he knew that he wasn't worth saving.

Sam tactfully ignored how distant he was attempting to be. She persisted gently. "It's alright, you know?"

He scoffed.

"I get it," she said, her voice little more than a whisper.

He met her eyes, scrutinising her for any indication that she wasn't telling him the truth. But he couldn't find it, of course. Sam didn't tell lies. Not this time. "You… you do?" He'd dismissed her before but he so wanted to believe her now — just this once, he was desperate __not__ to be alone when this was the very thing his OCD was trying to force upon him.

Sam shifted from foot to foot. If she'd planned this conversation, it wouldn't have been anything like this. It wouldn't have been spontaneous in the least — she'd have planned it because their history informed her only too clearly that dropping news into the middle of a settled day never ended well. It would have been just them, in peaceful surroundings; no bustling ED, road noise or sirens to distract them. And certainly no walkie-talkie calling her to a new case. __What part of 'not on shift yet'?__ "Look, I —" she said, before the stream of grainy words emerged.

He had never been in tune with the crackled language of walkie-talkies and Control, but even he could discern _'_ _ _Twenty year old male, stabbing, police presence en route.'__

"I'm sorry, I have to go," she said, her heart sinking at the missed opportunity.

"I know you do." She turned to leave, but Dylan's hand caught hers immediately. She turned to look at him, her eyebrows furrowing.

"Be careful."

The corners of her lips lifted slightly, her insides warmed by his affection.

* * *

Something troubled her slightly as she later neared the scene of the stabbing. Dylan reminded her to be careful, or gently told her to take care, nearly every time she went out on a call, these days. Had it become comfortable habit, or was it becoming a mechanism of defence against his mind?

* * *

Lily sighed deeply and opened the email. It was the answer to the open and ongoing question: the answer that she knew was coming but nonetheless dreaded. Archie Grayling's team wanted her in Hong Kong.

She'd slept fitfully before her night shift, and now that her focus was not on waiting for an answer but considering her response to it, she settled in front of the mirror with her make-up bag, concealing the worry that had disrupted her rest for the last few days. Blending concealer under her eyes and delivering a steady slick of eyeliner to each lid allowed her to switch off somewhat. Detaching from her swirling emotions meant she could stop herself clouding her decision with anything other than what was important.

By the time she left for work, her mind was made up. She was going. It would be so unwise to turn it down. Hard as it would now be to leave certain people behind, the fresh start would make her happy in the long run. Of course, she was banking on delayed gratification — there was no doubt that there would be pain in the short-term. The time that she'd known Dylan properly had taught her a lot about herself and the importance of opening up, as much as it had taught her vital skills in the sphere of mental health, and brought her a genuine friendship. And this precious time with Ethan… it would be agony to draw a line under it. She didn't know how she would bear it.

But bear it she would. Hong Kong was calling.

* * *

Her resolve wavered considerably when she arrived for work and actually saw Ethan.

"Evening," he said, hope gleaming in his every motion.

When he reached out his hand to take Lily's, she was glad he was freezing. It gave her an excuse to flinch away from him without upsetting him — if she couldn't forge some distance between them then she'd be in just as much turmoil about the research post as she was before.

Ethan was unfazed by her distance. "Sorry, left my gloves at home."

"It's okay," she said quietly as they stepped into the ED.

"So, have you heard anything? They were due to get in touch by six, weren't they?"

Lily froze where she stood. She bit her lip. "No," she lied. "They must be running behind; I've heard nothing." The words came easily. She wished that the delay in breaking the news to him would make it easer but she knew it simply wasn't true.

Ethan shrugged, putting a hand on each of her upper arms. "Come and find me, whatever happens, okay?"

She nodded, biting back the tears threatened by the lump in her throat. "I will," she managed to say after swallowing hard. When Ethan leant in and kissed her cheek, she screwed her eyes shut and wished that even the gentle scent of his aftershave didn't make the thought of leaving him so difficult. Why had she allowed him to become her spanner in the works? (She knew why. She loved him, more than she'd ever loved or been loved before.)

* * *

It was a few minutes before Dylan caught up with her, having overheard her exchange with Ethan.

"Archie Grayling doesn't send information late," he remarked. "You __have__ had your response."

Lily looked all around before answering him. "I have."

"And?"

She took a deep breath, her resolve as shaky as the breath, although she didn't show as much in her words. "I'm going."

* * *

"Are you alright?" Sam asked Dylan, as soon as she'd returned to the ED and delivered the stab victim to resus.

Dylan stiffened. "I haven't had time to think about it," he replied, a blatant untruth.

"You're a terrible liar."

He didn't care to hear the gentle tease in her voice, and he wasn't looking at her face (focusing instead on a plug socket, minus a plug, that has been left switched on a few paces away) so he missed her kind smile — her attempt to mask the worry she felt.

She had seen him tapping the top of the computer monitor in front of him. She hoped that this was as far as his compulsions would take him, tonight or ever, but obviously this was fanciful thinking, selfish really because she didn't know how to manage things if they got worse. He was too quiet. They weren't being watched, so she moved to stand beside him and slid an arm around him.

Dylan smartly stepped out of her embrace. The noise in his head had been amplified by her touch; he couldn't handle her need to fix him. He wasn't fixable. Everything was getting worse.

"Dylan?" she said, wrought with confusion and internal conflict.

He shook his head. "No, no, stop it!"

Sam frowned. "I won't stop it, I'm not going to leave you to drown in this by yourself!" She didn't particularly care anymore if they were noticed.

"Why not?" He half-knew her answer. Part of him wanted to hear it, even though a bigger part thought it was a horrible idea and wanted to put her far away from all of his mess. He raised his eyebrows, challenging her to say it out loud, here and now. But she just sighed, deflating with an agonised expression. "Exactly," he said with some finality. "I don't need anyone trying to save me — I'm a lost cause, leave me in peace because I. Am. Not. Worth. Saving."

"How can you possibly —"

"— I don't need you telling me how to fix my brain: you wouldn't have the first idea what it's like to lose control of your mental health!"

Sam saw red at this. She knew it well. She couldn't blurt it out in the middle of the ED, she just __couldn't__. Maybe Dylan hadn't had a choice in disclosing his OCD, but her breakdown had been behind closed doors and she wanted to keep it that way. "Stop it!" she snapped.

"I don't know what you want me to say! __Let's sit down and talk it all out with a nice cup of coffee,__ is that what you want to hear? __Come back with me after the shift so we can put a plaster on us and this until the next time your OCD explodes__ , is that closer?" He took a step back. His OCD __was__ exploding. An unavoidable narrative now, telling him he wasn't worthy of her care, that he'd ruin everything for her all over again, that she deserved so much better and she could get it in a heartbeat if only she'd move away from him and realise what a state he was. "What do you want from me? Whatever it is, you're not going to get it."

"This isn't all about you! I get it, we're messed up to the nth degree but that's no reason to be like this, when I just want to help!"

"Then stop helping! Leave me alone!"

His words were a knock-out punch, and kicks while she was down, too. "Fine." Her walkie-talkie erupted but she didn't pay it any attention. This was it. Their final last-chance saloon. And it was unfolding in the middle of the ED, very audibly, very visibly. Well, at least some of the gossip would be factually accurate, she thought bitterly.

Iain rushed through and took Sam by the arm, oblivious to what had come before. "Were you not listening to that?" he asked, not hesitating to step into her personal space and tap on her walkie-talkie.

She mentally shook herself, returning to her reality that contained paramedics and adrenaline, rather than that which contained all kinds of complications about an ex-husband she loved in theory but couldn't get close enough to love in practice. "No, what was it?" Sam's heart was already beating faster.

"No time, get in the ambo and I'll brief you on the way."

It gave her a reason to stop the conversation with Dylan, cut it dead with neither apology nor guilt, and leave without looking back.

* * *

He hadn't told her to be careful.


	22. Chapter 22

Holby, January 2018

Sam and Iain were strangely quiet on their way to the address they had been given. A nine-year-old boy had made the call; he was home alone with a baby sibling, with no idea where his parents were or when they'd be back, and the baby had started suffering extreme breathing difficulties. The police were involved, for obvious reasons, and Social Services would meet them at the property too.

"How could anyone do that to a kid?" Iain said forcefully.

But Sam was silent. She switched the radio off, frustrated by the upbeat pop music when their case was so dark. Her head was full, absolutely swimming in thoughts, none of which she really wanted to focus on. The potential child protection issue was the most pressing, of course. Maybe it wasn't the first time this child had been left alone with such responsibility. Maybe there was more to it, and one of the parents was vulnerable too. Maybe the baby had pre-existing health problems, but no-one cared. Why did it always seem to be the case, that awful people were blessed with multiple children while good people struggled to even have one? She was getting ahead of herself, she knew. It wouldn't do at all to make harsh judgements on the situation before she'd seen anything of it. What she had to focus on was showing patience and kindness to the nine-year-old, while treating a baby with potentially life-threatening breathing problems.

At the back of her mind (though not a new addition by any stretch of the imagination) was Dylan. It had to have been his OCD talking, but he'd seemed so lucid, so certain, that he wanted her out of his life. Had she been overbearing? Had she ruined them, for a second time? Were they really done now? Was that all of their second chances spent?

She rested her head softly on the window. It was raining mistily, blurring the streetlights as they sped down the road. Her breath fogged up the glass immediately: it was cold, maybe below freezing. She skimmed her bottom lip with the fingertips of her left hand, letting out a long breath.

"Sam!?"

She snapped out of her preoccupation at once, sitting straight upright in her seat. "Sorry. I'm just – never mind, doesn't matter."

* * *

A young woman was driving too quickly. She was running late for a party and her head was as full as Sam's, the difference being that the latter wasn't required to control a motor vehicle. The girl had rushed from work to get ready, eager that her friends would not be able to needle her for working too many hours and avoiding all social engagements, tonight. And she was thinking too of a boy – one that she had attended sixth form with and remained in contact with throughout university and the beginning of her tenure in this job that she'd dreamed of for years. He wanted to make a move on her, and part of her wanted him to as well. He had tried enough times. But she had always put him off, somehow persuaded that her work was more important. Not tonight, though. Tonight she'd give in to the undeniable chemistry between them and accept that maybe he kept asking __for a reason.__ Maybe something was meant to happen.

The road ahead was clear. She leaned over and felt about in the glovebox for the lipstick always kept there. Her fingers found it quickly, among a layer of detritus including empty sweet wrappers, receipts for drive-through coffees and car park tickets (the volume of these in thanks to the lack of free parking anywhere near her office.)

It was getting wetter outside, but nonetheless she looked in the rear-view mirror and began to apply her lipstick.

She wasn't concentrating, as her car drifted across to the wrong side of the road.

By the time she looked up, it was too late.

The ambulance was too close.

* * *

"Iain!" Sam screamed.

He swerved to avoid a head-on collision, but the ambulance still clipped the VW Beetle. The ambulance flipped, in slow motion, or so it seemed to Iain, clinging to the steering wheel and wishing his crew partner was anyone other than Sam Nicholls. She'd been through enough. The rain and slow-forming ice crystals meant the ambulance spun and skidded upon its terrible landing; it travelled on its side and the sound of crunching metal was unbearable. Iain gritted his teeth: his view was changed by his vantage point and the poor conditions, but he could see the Armco barrier of the opposite carriageway rapidly approaching the windscreen.

"I'm sorry, Sam," he mumbled, dazed, before screwing his eyes shut as the ambulance slammed into the near-indestructible strip of metal and finally came to a stop with a sickening crunch.

The sounds of the crash had been harrowing, but the silence after it was more so.

Somehow undamaged, the crew radio crackled into life. " _ _3006 this is control, stand down, repeat, 3006 stand down. Police have confirmed hoax call, there'll be no need for you to attend.__ "

Iain was held in his seat by his seatbelt, but he still managed to roar in pain and frustration, thumping the steering wheel furiously with his fists.

"Sam?" His head was sore, he was disoriented, and his vision was intermittently blurry, but his concern was still for Sam. They were a team: neither one left behind. "Sam, are you alright?"

He was met with silence.

Sam was out cold, limp as though she was nothing more than the fabric of her uniform pouring from her seat to the door. Blood oozed from a deep cut on her forehead, seeping stickily into her hair.

* * *

Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham, October 2011

Nothing would ever be the same again. Weeks had passed since her return from Afghanistan after sustaining what was a life-threatening, and remained a life-changing injury. The bullet no longer resided in her shoulder, granted, but the amount of pain she still experienced made her bitterly wonder if she'd been lied to all along.

She barely tolerated the doctor who had forecast that she would 'make a full recovery' and be snapped up by any ED looking for a registrar. In this state she couldn't even sit up to have her dressing changed without assistance, so thinking about working again was insurmountable. Use of her left arm had never been her forte but as it had been out of use entirely for such a length of time, it would take an awful lot of physio to return to normality.

Sam didn't even know what her normal was, anymore. On returning from her first tour, she'd naively, youthfully, innocently thought that the army was everything to her, but Dylan was more. She would be soon discharged from the army on medical grounds, so that was off the cards. Medicine, of course, was still open to her, if she could resume anything close to normal functioning. But after Afghanistan, civilian medicine would be too easy, too calm. She __lived__ for the adrenaline rushes of the field, treating people in volatile circumstances and throwing herself into the deep end to defend and protect others. Her adrenaline habit had never sat well with her ex-husband, she knew. He was as off the cards as the army, now. She'd done everything to fix them after her horrendous mistake with Iain Dean, but he'd gone and ruined it by hitting the bottle instead of trying to actually face up to the problems with their marriage. He had probably already been struck off for his drink habit. Most likely he was back in London, collapsed in a gutter after endless drinks from dusk until dawn.

She hated him, but she possibly hated herself more, for still wanting him. He was the only one who'd ever properly encouraged her ambition. Despite his flaws (and there were MANY) she thought that maybe a part of her still loved him. Or, at least, loved the part of him that could be kind and thoughtful, making her want to wake up beside him and smile at his acerbic wit. He'd believed in her so much, saving her from the rare occasions when her confidence had failed and she'd been struck down by doubt.

She was furious with him — he was so much better than the choices he'd made! If only he hadn't been so closed and obstructive, maybe they might have worked. She knew precious little about his family, but she did know that his father had coped with a the troubles in his own marriage in exactly the same way. She knew too that Dylan detested him for this, so why on earth had he made the same disaster of his life?

* * *

Oxford, January 2011

Things had never been so bad. She had thought that living somewhere so alive would take away the mental pain of her recovery. Oxford, at the start of a new term, was buzzing. Under any other circumstances, extroverted Sam might have buzzed along with the city. But she couldn't draw energy from the hum of Oxford life: it depleted her every day and reminded her of everything she no longer had.

It was a place of potential, which only served to rub salt in the wound that never seemed to heal. In her mind, her potential had run dry.

Another problem with Oxford, which had established itself until shortly after she'd moved in (making it far too late) was that it held so much of her life with Dylan. It was a good thing that she was hardly leaving the house, because there were a number of places that she'd have to avoid out of pure fear of confronting the memories.

No, Oxford was bad — but it was hundreds of times better than the brief period that she spent with her parents. Long hours were spent tucked up in her childhood bedroom while the colour slowly seeped out of her world. While the quiet recuperation may have helped her injury, it and the general air of awkwardness (and occasional hostility) had allowed her mental health to sink. Her mind had, at first, raced, replaying anything and everything. King's, Catterick (and all its heartbreak) Belfast, Helmand. Hundreds of kisses: stolen, spontaneous, planned, chaste, tender, entrancing, deceitful. Betrayal — on both of their parts. At least she had __tried__ to repair her mistakes.

But the most common (and the worst) was a flashback to a scorching day in Afghanistan. A routine patrol had turned into something more. Sam had been treating a familiar teenaged girl, practising her steadily improving Pashto and teaching a little English while she cleaned and dressed an old wound that stubbornly refused to heal. She remembered the unfolding events in painfully sharp focus. Sometimes the light in a room grew too bright and hot like the Afghan sun. Sometimes she could feel the back of her neck burning, or taste the grit on her lips. It always ended the same way though. A Pashto shout that Sam was still attempting to mentally translate when a bomb exploded and the bullet lodged in her shoulder.

The mental scars proved harder to handle than the physical one. Maybe she could have managed the physio, the medications, the pain, if she didn't wake up every night drenched in a cold sweat and shouting the name of her fellow soldier who hadn't survived the Taliban attack because she'd been sliding out of consciousness and unable to treat him. Her nights were punctuated with this and other 'milder' nightmares, while her days grew darker, not helped by her parents.

She had snapped, in the end, and that had been why she'd left.

* * *

 _ _For about the millionth time, they were airing their disapproval of her marriage and separation.__

 _"_ _ _This was always going to happen," her mother said righteously. "It's all his fault, seducing a student —"__

 _"—_ _ _Mum!" Sam said, reaching instinctively with her unimpeded arm to where her rings lay on their chain, under her t-shirt. "This has nothing to do with — It wasn't like that, and I wasn't a child! Two fully consenting adults can do as they like!"__

 _"_ _ _Not when one of them is in a position of seniority over a considerably younger and more foolish other," she replied sniffily.__

 _ _Sam stiffened under the veiled insult hurled her way. She badly wanted to get up from her chair and leave the room, but she refused to passively accept what was being said. Her temper was rising.__

 _"_ _ _All we're saying is that if you'd chosen someone your own age, you could have settled down by now, all this silly army business over and done with. You could have started a family…"__

 _"_ _ _Drop it, now," Sam interrupted. Her stomach flipped a somersault: her parents didn't know about the miscarriage so had no idea how uncomfortable this jibe had made her. She'd come so close to meeting their ridiculous, archaic, traditional expectations. "Being in the army was not a phase for me to grow out of — it was my identity." It pained her to say this in the past tense. It only highlighted how lost she felt now that she would not be returning to work as Major Sam Nicholls. "It made me excited to start work every day because it was the only thing I ever wanted!" She balled her fists, the left one twingeing in her shoulder. "For all of his faults, at least Dylan was proud of my life in uniform.__ ** _ _ **This**__** _ _is why I wanted him for next of kin, instead of you."__

 _ _Her mother gasped.__

 _"_ _ _He even turned you against your own parents, how disgusting." It was her father's turn to pipe up and his input stung when he usually remained impartial to the frequent conflicts between his wife and daughter.__

 _ _Sam pressed her lips together to stop herself blurting out that Dylan had had nothing to do with her negative feelings towards them.__

 _"_ _ _Your mother and I told you from the start that getting involved with him was a terrible idea. We knew it would always end in tears."__

 _ _Sam stood up sharply, letting out a pained sound. She looked from her father to her mother, eyes blazing. Her heart was racing, anger flooding her system in a way she hadn't felt in a long time. "He didn't book the Taliban to shoot me, did he?"__

 _"_ _ _Samantha!" her mother shrieked. "Apologise at once!"__

 _ _But Sam shook her head, her eyes narrowing. "No. I am grateful that you allowed me to recover here but I do not have to stay here, and put up with the hardest parts of my life being criticised and pulled apart as though I'm not capable of judging them harshly enough by myself."__

* * *

Life was grey now and everything was heavy. She usually didn't bother opening the curtains fully, sometimes at all, because the brightness of outside was too much to bear. Sam sank into herself, refusing to answer the phone or open her email inbox. In the end, she unplugged the landline because its shrill tones sounded somewhat off in her still-damaged ears and reminded her how poor her functioning had become, how much of a burden she had proved herself to be. To whom, she wasn't sure — her parents didn't care, Dylan was probably passed-out drunk somewhere, and her army unit was still deployed until the summer. Alone was what she had, and she thought that it protected her.

* * *

One afternoon, there was a knock at her front door that didn't stop. After hearing a few shouts, she still couldn't place the voice, which didn't increase her inclination to let them in.

"Sam? Sam! I know you're in there, open up!"

" _ _No,__ " she muttered under her breath.

"I'm worried about you," he called. "Sam, you know I'll break the door down in the end if you don't let me in — I'm pretty sure no-one on this well-to-do street wants to see a uniformed squaddie breaking down the door of someone they've not seen in months!"

Sam was already halfway to the door, and her shoulders sagged in relief as she at last realised who was at her door. "Iain," she breathed. " _ _Iain.__ "

Iain's face fell, seeing the state that his friend was in. She didn't look like she'd smiled in years: her eyes were cool and ready to cry at a moment's notice. He'd only ever seen her hair looking immaculate, but today it was in a messy bun that had perhaps not even started out neatly. Long strands had slipped out and lay limply on her slumped shoulders and down the back of her baggy sweatshirt. Her leggings had wrinkled badly around her knees. She shivered as the cold winter air rushed into her hallway. This was not the Sam Nicholls he knew, but instead someone who needed protecting. He smiled, eager for her not to think there was anything wrong with her evident struggle. "You going to let me in, then?"

* * *

It was worse than he'd anticipated, inside the little terraced house. This was not the home of someone recovering from injury and doing their best to keep ticking over. This was the house of someone who no longer saw the point in living.

He watched Sam sit listlessly and stare into space as though she was alone. Her distraction allowed him the chance to get a good look at the surroundings, unpleasant and intrusive as that was. A pile of unopened post wobbled precariously on a small table — to Iain's horror, towards the middle of the pile there were red and green envelopes. Christmas cards, ignored. How long had she been in this bubble of isolation and listlessness? He looked away from the pile to avoid mentally counting the number of blueys in there.

Everything about the house was stale. Even the air seemed devoid of life and desire to survive.

Tentatively, he stood in front of her, gentle in his attempt to get her attention. "What's happened to you, Sam?"

She didn't look at him. "I was shot, did no-one tell you?" Her voice was bitter and harsh.

His shoulders dropped. He had been there, that day in Helmand. She couldn't remember. She was so damaged by what had happened to her that her memory wasn't serving her correctly anymore. He jumped in surprise as she turned stiffly around to look at him, eyes wide with shock.

"I'm sorry," she said, her face falling. "I'm sorry - I don't - I just…" She couldn't word it. She couldn't make sense of it herself, never mind explain it to someone else.

"Right," Iain said. In a split-second he had made up his mind: he didn't know what he was doing, not really, but he had to try. "I've got to get you out of this house. Just for a little while. Take your mind off all of this."

Sam's eyes grew wide and concerned as it dawned on her that she had been taking very little care of herself of late. "Ou-out?"

Iain looked at her sympathetically. She suddenly seemed very small. There were cogs turning in her mind, he could tell. They were slow from lack of use, but they were turning nonetheless.

"I need a shower, and then…" She faltered.

"One thing at a time. Only one."

* * *

It was shocking to assimilate confident Major Nicholls, the flirtatious Sam he'd spent a night with and the Sam he'd found in this pit of despair.

While she was upstairs, he made a speedy attempt to turn her house back into a home. He pulled back the curtains and blinds, letting bright daylight in where it hadn't touched for too long, and threw open the windows. The air was cold, of course, but it was fresh, and that was what mattered. The very small amount of washing up led him to question how little she had been looking after herself — it was clear that she hadn't been coping so couldn't have been keeping up with this chore. The house seemed to breathe a sigh of relief as he freed it from its shackles of disrepair.

"Oh!"

He turned around at the sound of Sam's voice. She stood in the living room doorway dressed in blue jeans and a soft, cable-knit jumper. Her hair was still slightly damp and although it wasn't lightened by the sun, he recognised the gentle wave that he'd seen many times in Afghanistan when the sun hadn't yet baked the moisture from her hair.

"You didn't have to… I couldn't help it, things just started to slide…" she mumbled. "Thank you."

Iain shrugged, and hugged her back when she came to him nervously with open arms. Her hair smelled of coconut — it was a scent he remembered at once.

"You looked so out of it before, I was worried about you. Still tired?" 'Tired' was the best way he could find of euphemising how far she'd seemed from her true self. It wasn't inaccurate really, she __had__ looked exhausted, but he knew there was far more to it.

"Um, no, not as much. I think I'm okay now. Feeling a little better."

* * *

They ambled around the city, Sam bundled up in a winter coat and scarf, holding onto Iain's arm. It was strange, feeling his khaki uniform under her fingers. There was sweet nostalgia but it was limitlessly tainted with regret: she would never wear that uniform again. Wandering down by the river, he didn't force her to speak, which she appreciated immensely. They made small-talk mostly, but this was only a stalling tactic. It wasn't easy to tell him how difficult she'd found things since coming home from her parents'. She was grateful that the frosty afternoon had not lent itself to many other people taking walks by the Thames.

Later, they sat drinking coffee in her kitchen. Sam noted quickly that Iain didn't make a particularly good cup of coffee, and found herself wistfully thinking of mornings spent in Belfast, between the wedding and the move back to England.

"I think you'll be alright, you know?" Iain said at last.

She raised her eyebrows. How he had come to this conclusion, from the evidence he had been presented with, was anyone's guess.

"You will, I'm sure of it. This place, it suits you."

"Do you think so?"

"Yeah, I do. You came back to life when we were walking down by the river, when you were somewhere familiar and you could tell me about it. I know it's only something small but it's a start. You've seen the rehab process, it's not going to be easy but you'll do it."

Sam scoffed lightly. She didn't really believe him. And returning to civilian life was not all that appealing to her, at present.

"You have to find your new normal. It'll take time, I know, but you're in a better position than lots of people, Sam. Keep up that physio, heal up and you'll pass the NHS medical, easy. Then you can go back to that crazy ED you told me about, find yourself another consultant to —"

"Get out," Sam said dangerously. "Get out of my house, Iain, this isn't a joke! Dylan and I, we weren't a joke!"

"Alright, I'm sorry —"

"No, leave me alone."

* * *

Six months later, things had changed. Iain's disastrous visit had acted as a catalyst, giving her a reason to fight her way out of the grey mist she'd been shrouded in. It had been a long road, but she had finally found the elusive 'new normal' that Iain had been right about, before he was all wrong about everything else. The NHS medical had not been a breeze, but she had passed, and she knew it was time for her research to begin in earnest. And finally, she found what she was looking for. When asked which NHS trust she wanted to be recommended to, there was only ever going to be one answer.

"Holby."

* * *

Holby, January 2018

Sam opened her eyes. She blinked, aware that things were not as they should have been.

"Sam, thank God you're alright!" Iain said from his suspended position in his seat.

She twisted to look at him and let out a yelp of pain.

"Alright, alright, don't try and move, I'll get us some help. What hurts?"

Sam held herself very still, but there was still pain. "My head," she said, closing her eyes for a moment.

"No, no, keep your eyes open for me. No closing those eyes, alright? Wide open, keep talking to me, no matter what." Aside from her visible head injury, there was no telling what was going on inside, so he wasn't taking any chances at all. "Anything else?"

"My shoulder — the left, you know, the one that…" She was worried now. Another injury to that shoulder could be catastrophic, and it was already irrevocably changed from the attack seven years ago.

Iain stretched out one arm, trying to reach her and offer some comfort. "I know the one," he said quietly.

* * *

Ethan put down the phone and immediately left his office, ashen-faced. "Can I have everyone's attention please?" he asked loudly, standing in the middle of the ED. Gradually, the available staff gathered. They exchanged glances as they noticed Ethan's grave expression.

"Sam and Iain's ambulance has been part of an RTC." There was no point in trying to sugar-coat it. "I don't know the extent of injuries or what exactly has happened, but I will need a doctor to join back-up at the scene as there are confirmed casualties from the other involved vehicles."

Dylan's face turned white. This was his fault. He'd argued with Sam, and then not reminded her to be careful, and now this had happened. She could die — she might already be dead — he had caused this. His stomach lurched as if he might be sick, and he rushed out of the ED into the crisp night air.


	23. Chapter 23

Holby, January 2018

The ED stood in stunned silence for a moment following the news of the ambulance crash. No-one really knew how to react: there wasn't a precedent for this. The best they could do was prepare the ED for the incoming traumas, while quietly ignoring the fact that some of them would be their own colleagues. No-one knew the extent of anyone's injuries, either — the only possible hope was that one of the paramedics had put out the distress call to control, so at least one of them couldn't be too badly hurt.

This however was of no comfort to Dylan, who stood alone outside the ED, trying to ignore the distressing images bursting into the forefront of his mind. There were no compulsions, not yet.

People started to disperse from where Ethan had addressed them, but Lily lingered for a moment. She was completely torn: she'd made her mind about Hong Kong, so she knew she should distance herself from him to ease how awful it was going to be to say goodbye to him. But this was his first time dealing with a major incident involving members of the ED team, and she refused to see him drown in it.

"What can I do?" she asked.

Ethan blinked. "Nothing," he replied. "Make time go backwards, maybe?"

He seemed lost, resigned to messing this whole situation up. She wasn't going to stand for this. "No, you're Clinical Lead now. You know I love you," she added quickly, "but I have to say this. You're not going to get anywhere with that attitude. Now, _what do you want me to do_?"

It took him by surprise to have her speak to him so firmly, but it was what he needed. "They need a doctor out there; I need you to help me work out who to send, because I'm not sending you."

"Why not?" Lily asked indignantly. "I'm perfectly capable, you know that!"

"Lily, I'd be sending you out to work with Iain."

"I know."

"And Sam."

"I know."

"Which would be a ridiculously awkward and potentially volatile situation to send you into."

"I know!"

"Then why are you insisting that you go?"

Lily rolled her eyes, secretly very pleased that he had put so much thought into this and was so concerned for her. "Because I'm not a child, Ethan. I _can_ separate the very messy relationships I have with both of those two, in order to get a job done." She shrugged. "You can't go, because you're Clinical Lead and you're needed to co-ordinate things here. Elle can't go: you need all the consultants you can get, moving patients through so there's space for the incoming traumas. And it's not rocket science that you can't send Dylan. He's too involved."

"And you're not?" Ethan raised his eyebrows.

"Well, obviously I am, but I am not impeded by a mental health condition, am I? I know it usually has no bearing on his work, but I think under the circumstances it would be grossly unfair..." She hoped that it went without saying, that Dylan's improving relations with Sam meant he probably wouldn't cope with this situation at all well.

Ethan reached out and momentarily squeezed Lily's hand. "You're sure?" he said in a low voice.

She nodded. "But you need to promise me that you're not going to let Dylan get dragged under by his OCD, tonight."

* * *

Lily walked out of the ED in her green trauma suit, ready to leave for the RTC, when she saw Dylan, still standing out in the cold.

"I don't know what's going on with you tonight – I can't imagine how worried you must be, knowing that Sam's out there." There was a pause, in which she checked that he was taking in at least some of what she was saying. "But you have to trust, I know that that's hard. Trust that I'm going to do my best, no matter what happens, can you do that?"

"Yes," he replied gruffly. He _did_ trust Lily, although his OCD did not. As long as he could maintain this override, it would be manageable.

"And trust that back here, everyone will do that same. No-one's going to let her fall through the net, if anything's happened to her."

"I know that. I do. _I know that._ I just have difficulty holding onto that knowledge."

Lily bit her lip. "I overheard you and Sam, before she was called out earlier. I know that you didn't part on the best terms... I – I heard you say that you weren't worth saving, but someone's got to be the one to remind you, it's your OCD that's not worth saving, not you. She wants to save you, Sam, I mean, because she cares about you. Everyone's got to have at least one good thing in their lives, and she's yours. Don't throw away your good thing just because your illness is telling you that you don't deserve it. I've never seen anyone make you happy before, not like she does." Silence. "You will be okay."

Dylan clasped his hands together. "Don't do anything stupid out there. Don't be a hero."

"I won't," Lily said with an encouraging smile. He'd sounded so much like his usual self, but she was still very unsettled by her concern for how things might turn out.

* * *

It took Lily's breath away to see the battered ambulance on its side, crunched into the barrier at the edge of the road. Yes, it had worried her that this might be an uncomfortable working experience, but she still took off at a run towards the ambulance as its damage became clearer. The driver's side was not without damage (the window was broken and she could not decide whether this had been part of the crash or a desperate attempt to get out) but the passenger side seemed to have taken the full impact of the Armco barrier, not to mention some serious force during the collision.

It quickly became clear who had been driving, when she approached the grass verge where Iain and Sam were. He was crouched beside her – Lily could see that he was hiding his own shock at the turn of events in order to take care of her. Sam was white, except for the dark smear of blood that had come from a deep cut on the right of her forehead, and she stared into space; her teeth chattered despite the two blankets placed around her shoulders. Lily strongly suspected that one of them should have been Iain's. It was a bitterly cold night; the misty rain was already beginning to sparkle on the road as it formed ice crystals. Sam's chattering teeth were probably not entirely down to the low temperature though. Iain would have already been observing her for signs of shock, and from the way she was sitting, she was obviously in a lot of pain. She was attempting to support her left arm, a clumsy effort when she was cold, shocked and potentially concussed. She curled slightly forward as she sat – Lily's immediate assumption was a broken collarbone.

"Were you driving?" she asked Iain, breaking the momentary silence which had begun when he realised which doctor had come to their aid.

He nodded. "That red car up there –" He nodded up the road, to where a fire crew were dissecting a VW Beetle to free its driver. "– swerved across us out of nowhere. There was nothing I could do, and the ambulance flipped. I'm fine," he added, a little too quickly, "but we had to get Sam out."

Sam snapped out of her quiet withdrawal for a moment. "What he's too polite to say, is that I don't like the dark and I was making things worse by panicking."

"It's – that's okay." It was surprisingly easy to push everything aside and just treat both Iain and Sam as if they were normal patients, albeit with a greater capacity to explain what was wrong. "Let me get a dressing on your head laceration, then I'll examine that arm."

"No!" Sam said forcefully.

Lily was stunned. Sam cradled her arm and was obviously in significant pain – why wouldn't she want it to be examined? Butterflies erupted in her stomach; there was no need for Sam to make this situation difficult, and yet here she was, getting under Lily's skin and silently reminding her how little experience she had in comparison. "Okay... well it'll have to be examined back in the ED then. Is there anywhere else hurting, right now?" But Sam seemed to have withdrawn again, apparently spent by the effort of being belligerent. Lily looked to Iain, and when he nodded, she began to prepare painkillers.

But there was something 'off' about Iain too, though Lily couldn't put her finger on it yet.

"We were both thrown around a bit," he said, his words emerging more slowly than they did usually.

She looked at him for a moment. "Are you sure you're alright, then? You said it yourself, the ambulance rolled over. I can't imagine you'd get away injury-free, from that." She noticed for the first time that he looked a little dazed. His eyes weren't quite in focus, she was sure of it.

"I'm alright," he insisted. "Get Sam sorted, and someone can look after me when we get back."

Lily nodded, not wishing to pick an argument that could appear to be a petty dig at her ex-boyfriend, though while she dressed Sam's head wound, she did continually glance back at Iain to check that he wasn't deteriorating. Satisfied that Sam was no longer losing any blood, she called back to the ED to update them on what was happening.

* * *

There was no-one else around, for which Ethan was extremely grateful. He stood outside the staffroom and winced. The new information he'd been given was never going to be easy to hand over, never mind in consideration of Dylan's mental state, which he had no idea of really.

Inside, Dylan was pacing up and down the room urgently. It wasn't a compulsion. His constant motion and wrung hands were a desperate attempt to fight off the compulsions that he could not face up to. There was a multi-casualty major trauma heading for the ED, an unstable situation that Sam was in the middle of (which worried him far more than the imminent ED chaos.) He hadn't reminded her to take care; because of stupid argument, that _he'd_ started, Sam was going to have been hurt. When something went wrong out at the crash site, it would be all his fault. Sam had been to Afghanistan, multiple times, and now she'd be killed by trying to save everyone except herself.

As he made his way towards the back of the room, he could see her image so clearly that it was frightening. She was perfectly heroic, as always, saving lives all over but taking too many risks, being too much of a hero. There were shouts of horror –

The opening of the staffroom door sounded like an explosion. Dylan raised his arms protectively around his head, flinching sharply.

"Dr Keogh – Dylan," Ethan said, more confidently than he felt. This was yet another of his shortfalls as Clinical Lead: he had a member of staff whom he had never thought to ask about how to safeguard him in times of apparent crisis.

Dylan turned to face Ethan, fear in his eyes. After blinking hard a few times and taking a steadying breath, he composed himself. "I'm fine."

Ethan pressed his lips together. "I'm sorry, but that is patently not true. I – I don't know what to do, I wish I did."

"Do not send me home," he said at once.

"I'm not going to," Ethan replied flatly. "First of all, selfishly, I couldn't live with myself if something happened and I'd let you be totally alone with your thoughts. Secondly, the trauma team will be back soon. I need you here and I suspect you both want and need to be here too."

Dylan nodded, not meeting Ethan's gaze.

He took a deep breath, considering how to break the news. "As far as I know, Sam was the worst affected by the collision. Lily has reported that she has a head injury, although she has shown no signs so far of significant trauma. Her neck and spine have been cleared at the scene and she is fully conscious and coherent so far. Queried fractured left collarbone – but Lily was extremely sparse on those details as the call was so short. I'm sorry," he added, noting that Dylan had closed his eyes and put his hands at the back of his head. "I thought that having the full picture might be better for you."

"It is, but that doesn't make it any easier."

"Which brings me to my third reason why I'm not sending you home. I can't help you if you're not here."

Dylan was floored.

"What do you need me to do, as your Clinical Lead, to make tonight easier?"

He sighed. "Look, I have OCD, which you've probably guessed is not particularly under control. And then to top it all off, two people that I care about are in the middle of a dangerous situation which I have no control over whatsoever. I have been trying not to follow through with compulsions, from the moment that you told us about the RTC. I am very much not in control this evening, but this does not mean that I'm unable to work competently and safely. I need you to take control, here." It was a difficult, brave admission, but one that had to be made. "I need you to tell me what to do. Just... just tell me where to be and what I need to do. Take that decision away from me, because it's one too many."

Ethan nodded. He hadn't expected this. It was a long way from the norm, directing a consultant many years his senior as if he was an inexperienced junior doctor. But if it was going to stop the department losing a consultant on a night when they could not afford to, then it was worth it. "Alright. But if at any point you realise you shouldn't be working, you are going to stop. Patient safety is our highest priority, as much as I realise you need the distraction until the RTC gets back here."

"Agreed. Obviously."

"So, cubicles first, please," Ethan said authoritatively. "There's a dislocated shoulder in two, chest infection in five and a fracture in one. Take your pick." He deliberately avoided cubicle four – someone else could take that as it definitely wasn't worth tempting fate.

"Okay. Thank you. Um –" He hesitated a moment, knowing he was about to overstep a line. "There's something you need to know. It's not my place to say, but Lily lied to you this evening when she told you that she'd heard nothing from Archie Grayling. She's made up her mind, she's going to Hong Kong to take up the research post."

Ethan was silent. Stunned, he wondered why she hadn't felt able to tell him. In the pit of his stomach was a worry that he would never voice to Dylan – what if something happened at the crash site? What if she couldn't accept the job on time... or at all? He shook his head in disbelief.

"I just thought that you needed to know, with things taking a turn out there –"

"You don't know that they are," Ethan said gently.

"If anything happens –"

"It won't." He was firm this time, sounding certain although he didn't feel it anymore.

* * *

Under the influence of painkillers, Sam began to return somewhat to normal. It irritated her that Lily still had so little trust in Iain – he'd given his word that he was fine, what right did she have to question him? It was clear she didn't believe a word of what he was saying, from the way she kept looking at him and scrutinising him with every glance. What she was looking for, Sam couldn't fathom. The muffled sensation of pain kept her mouth shut for the most part though, preventing any explosion of tempers.

It wasn't until Lily had finished covering the cut on her head and returned in earnest to her stupid idea that Iain was hurt too, that Sam couldn't hold back. "Lily, drop it! He's already said he's fine!"

But Lily ignored her. She made cold, clear eye-contact with Iain. "I don't want any more of this bravado and heroics, Iain. Be honest with me, please. Are you sure you weren't hurt in the crash?"

"I – I don't know," he stammered. "I can't remember. I remember... swerving away from the car, and then... we rolled, obviously, then the barrier. But I don't know, I wasn't thinking about me!"

"It's okay, try and stay as calm as you can for me. A lot has happened tonight, I'm not surprised you can't keep it all in your head. Are you feeling sick or dizzy at all?" She already had a pretty good idea that he'd sustained some kind of head injury, from the way his speech had begun to deteriorate. Her focus was shifting – Sam was in a lot of pain and had a serious injury around her left shoulder area, but she was no longer the priority.

Iain frowned, rubbing his forehead clumsily. "I – um – dizzy, I think." When he stood up suddenly, Lily followed suit.

"I'm... going to be sick," he mumbled, taking a few unsteady steps away from Lily and Sam before vomiting violently.

"Iain!" Sam said, instantly worried. Her unwavering trust of Iain had not served her well at all. Any malaise that Lily had shown previously appeared to instantly melt away: Sam watched her put an arm around him, half-supporting him as she guided him back to sitting.

"You know what to do, just sit with your head down for a minute, keep your breaths as even as you can. Sam," she said, although asking her for help was the very last thing she wanted to do. "I need to call the ED, make sure they're ready – can you just keep him talking, and interrupt me if anything changes? I know you can't do a lot, with your arm, but just – you can talk to him, anything, okay?"

Sam nodded, embarrassed. It was admirable really, that Lily was managing this situation so well. She'd come a very long way from the arrogant F2 that Sam had once known.

* * *

Liaising with the police wasn't pleasant.

"What happened to the driver of the Beetle?" she asked, half-knowing the answer already.

The officer shook his head sadly. "The St James' paramedics got to her as soon as the fire service had cut her out of the car, but she was already gone. They think internal bleeding, most likely, but the pathologist at St James' will be able to give them a clearer picture. She'd been thrown around so much –"

"– Seatbelt?" Lily asked.

"Faulty. The MOT is out of date on her car – they would have spotted it in a second. She wasn't held in the seat hardly at all."

Lily cringed. "I'll make sure our Clinical Lead gets in touch with St James'," she said, thinking aloud. "My colleague, the one who was driving, he'll want to know the outcome of any investigation." She knew Iain too well – he might struggle to accept a resolution until it was in front of him in black and white evidence.

"For his peace of mind," the officer went on, "from our point of view he couldn't have acted any differently. He wasn't at fault, as far as we can see. Traffic officers have been all over this bit of road, her car and the ambulance, and it looks like a serious lapse of concentration on the young lady's part, unfortunately."

She relayed this all to Ethan in her phone call to him. It was a tense, quick call once again, though this time she was eager to return as it was Iain she needed to look after.

"Wait," Ethan said, "don't go yet."

"Why not? Ethan, he's got a head injury, you know that the situation could change in a second."

"I do, but I also know that he's not by himself, and from what you've told me Sam is perfectly capable of assessing whether he's taking a turn or not. I wanted to check that _you're_ alright."

"Me?" She thought of Hong Kong, and leaving. Once again, her heart was stuck in Holby, tied down to sweet, thoughtful Ethan. Ethan, whose stress at handling this incident had been palpable, yet he still found the time to make sure that she was okay. "I'm fine," she said honestly. "I'm not hurt, and I might have earned myself a bit of respect tonight, too." Not that she'd be needing it, if she moved six thousand miles away... "We'll be back in the ED soon, make sure there's a slot in CT for Iain, please."

"I will," he replied. "I love you."

Lily smiled and momentarily turned her back on Sam and Iain. "I love you too."

She'd thought her mind was made up. But things were changing. Again.

* * *

Back in the ED at long last, Sam, who was still unhappy about her argument with Dylan prior to the accident, was reluctant to allow him to be the one to treat her.

"You really don't have to; you've got better things to do. You're needed out there, anyway, not dealing with me."

He looked over to where Iain was being rushed to CT. "They'll manage. They'll have to."

Sam stared in confusion. "Since when was I your first priority?"

"You were always my first priority."

"Yeah. And the sky is green." She tilted her head to one side quizzically and hissed when her shoulder pulled painfully.

"Come on, you need someone to take a look at you. And I need to do this – I need to fix what I've broken. I have to try." He was strangely calm now, his prior panic having dissipated now that there was no immediate or apparent risk to anyone's life. Namely Sam's. Although the concern in Lily's voice as she'd handed over Iain hadn't sat particularly well with him either.

He led Sam to an empty cubicle with a light hand on her right shoulder. When she sat down on the bed, wincing, he said clearly, "You _were_ always first priority. For me. Other things... got in my way."

Sam was silent.

"I need to apologise for what happened before you left the department, earlier. I was really rather stupid, and I'm sorry. I think I've forgotten what it is to be looked after."

"Forgotten? That would suggest that we were good at it before..." She smiled, but immediately her face dropped: she'd felt a pull and a strange popping sensation under the dressing on her forehead. She lifted her uninjured hand up to it. "I think I've just re-opened the wound under here."

"Will you let me look after you, now?" he asked hopefully.

"Yes."

They sat in comfortable silence as he diligently mended the cut on Sam's head. She needed stitches, but she trusted him implicitly to get them right – at least if she scarred it would be neat enough. It took her greatly by surprise when he was finished, that he kissed the top of her head tenderly.

Dylan closed his eyes for a moment, maintaining his contact with Sam for as long as possible. "I'm just so relieved that you're alright," he murmured. The OCD was quieter now, but still present.

Sam tilted her head back to kiss him properly, but it hurt her shoulder so much that she let out a distressed moan. She wanted to ask him about this evening, about how he'd coped with everything, but as always, there were obstacles in the way.

"I know you wouldn't let anyone touch your arm while you were out, but I need to examine it now," Dylan said. He looked at her closely. "You already know, don't you?" He watched her face, hoping he still knew the minutiae of her expressions. "Is it your collarbone, then?"

"No," she muttered. "Help me sit up properly, then sit down with me. There's something I need to tell you – I wanted to tell you before, but there was never a good time, and – I don't know, I just couldn't!"

He frowned in confusion, but did as she had asked, helping her to sit up despite her discomfort. They sat a few inches apart, their legs dangling over the side of the bed.

She took a deep breath, which upset the stillness that her shoulder needed. She adjusted the way she was supporting her arm, stalling for time. "After we separated, you know that I deployed again, back to Afghanistan."

"Yes."

"There was this one day, right at the start, really, where we went out on patrol as normal. I was – I was treating this girl that I'd seen around a lot. She had a wound that wasn't healing at all – I'd run out of options, to be quite honest. All I could do was – I just had to re-dress it when I saw her, and that was about it."

If it had been any other day, Dylan might have chastised her for her inclusion of all these details. _Obviously_ the girl had nothing to do with whatever Sam was about to say. But nonetheless he was deeply uneasy. He knotted his hands in his lap and concentrated on her words, attempted to ignore the catastrophising in his mind.

"It was a normal day. I chatted with her – in this strange way that we all used to. A bit of English, a bit of Pashto. Gestures and smiles and hope that they took us the right way, you know? But there was – I –" Her words dried up. She'd never had to retell this aloud before. She'd never anticipated that it would come to explaining it all to _Dylan_.

"Samantha, you don't have to tell me this, if it's this hard," he said softly. He put an arm around her (which he retracted almost immediately, when she jolted from the pain in her shoulder) and was alarmed to realise that she was shaking a little.

"I do," she persisted. "You need to know, it's not fair that you never knew. My unit – we hadn't noticed what was going on, not until it was too late. There was – there a – a bomb."

Dylan closed his eyes, his mouth involuntarily falling open with shock. "Sam," he began hoarsely, but there was nothing he could say.

"No, wait. I'm sorry, there's more. There was an explosion, and I knew one of the lads had been hit by – by something, I don't know, but he was in a bad way. I'd only turned to look at him – then..." She bit her lip. "I was shot. Left shoulder."

"All the while, I was back in Catterick, oblivious to all of normal-functioning humanity because I was perpetually off my face." His voice was thick with emotion.

There was an awkward silence: it was an uncomfortable, undeniable truth. Dylan put a hand on her knee, the most intimate comfort he could think of that wouldn't cause her any further pain. The tension was finally broken when Sam put her unencumbered hand on his. It smarted in her shoulder, until she carefully hooked the fingers of her left hand around the collar of her uniform, holding her arm in a steady position.

"I'm so sorry... about everything."

"You don't have to be sorry, Dylan, good god it was seven years ago; it's done and I'm okay."

"No, I'm not sorry that it happened – I mean I am, of course I am – I mean that I'm sorry I was such a monumentally awful husband that I didn't even deserve to be told."

Sam was amazed. She didn't know what to do, apart from try and claw back some control of things that _could_ be changed. "You need to X-ray it," she said, her mind not connecting the dots as quickly as it might have done, had it not been the middle of the night and the aftermath of a serious road accident. "And then... and then..."

"And then," Dylan cut in, "you need to allow other people to make decisions about your care." He looked at her meaningfully, which was cut short when he yawned (the trauma of this night shift was finally taking its toll.) "Until further notice, you're a patient. You need to try and stop thinking like a paramedic, or a doctor, and let me take care of you." He paused, quietly administering IV paracetamol to make her more comfortable. She might think that she was unbreakable, but the faint redness around her eyes gave away that she was still hurting, even when she wasn't moving.

He was ready to leave the cubicle and arrange her X-ray, when she stopped him, just as he'd pulled back the curtain.

"Dylan, what do I do, if it's all – if it's damaged again?"

He sighed sympathetically. "You take whatever treatment is suggested to you. If that means getting in touch with your old physio for a second opinion, then maybe that's it. You'll be okay, bones heal. Soft tissue mends, eventually. It will be okay, no matter what." It was bold of him, he knew, to try so hard to soothe her when he was the last person to believe any affirmation that 'everything will be fine.'

Her breathing picked up. "No, you don't understand," she said, panicked. "I can't go through that again, I can't do it. I don't want to –"

"– Dr Keogh, you're needed over here, please." It was a shout from across the ED, though in concentrating on Sam he could not discern the voice.

Once again struck by the curse of the ED, the difficulty of being pulled in far too many directions, Dylan was powerless to ease Sam's worry. He stepped swiftly back into the cubicle and squeezed her hand. "I will be back as soon as I can," he said earnestly. "I love you." It was an impulse, a reflex, something that felt so good to finally say again and mean it with every bit of his heart.

Blinking away tears, Sam composed herself a little. "I love you too."


	24. Chapter 24

Holby City Hospital, January 2018

"Everything okay?" Ethan asked, very aware that he'd pulled Dylan away from the one person tonight with the power to level him back out. But Dylan seemed to be a different man to the distressed one Ethan had agreed to remove all autonomy from in the staffroom, earlier that evening.

"Yes, why wouldn't it be?" Dylan replied, as though he hadn't been half a step from mental health crisis a few hours ago.

Ethan decided to let it go, and continue with the matter at hand. "I need a second opinion on this — it's Iain's head CT and with the symptoms he's been displaying, I don't want to miss anything."

"Fine. While I'm doing this, Sam needs an X-ray slot, urgently please." He looked down at the iPad and began scrutinising the black and white image with every remaining ounce of his mental capacity.

"Of course, of course — is there anything I can do? For Sam, I mean?"

Dylan didn't look up. "No. I'm concerned that she may have aggravated a significant, traumatic old injury, hence the urgency."

Ethan frowned, heading swiftly for a phone to call up to X-ray. As far as he, or anyone else, knew, Sam didn't __have__ any significant or traumatic old injuries. Once again, it seemed, Dylan and Sam were proving quite how much the E.D. had no idea about their past. (Although this time, Dylan hadn't been privvy to the information __either,__ until about ten minutes ago. )

* * *

Lily stood outside Iain's cubicle, agonising over whether she should go in. She didn't even know what she'd say…

"Lily?" he called from the other side of the curtain.

She pulled back the curtain.

"I could see your boots," he explained. "Had to be you."

"Oh - I - obviously, I should have thought of that, really," she stammered. "How are you feeling?" It was a moot question, really. He'd been in resus until not so long ago, and the way he had purposely lowered his voice gave away that sound was only exacerbating the headache that painkillers weren't making a dent in.

Iain's eyes crinkled with amusement. "Never better, actually. I'm hoping they put me in a gown later, it's been a long time since I've looked that good."

Lily had expected this conversation to be uncomfortable at best; it was an unexpectedly pleasant surprise that Iain seemed prepared to put their shared past behind them and remain his usual, best self despite his obvious injury. He was talking to her like he talked to anyone — impressively for the early hour of the morning he was as bright and buoyant as ever, though his voice was a little quieter. For a fleeting, terrifying moment she wondered if his injury had wiped the memory of their relationship's close, and she panicked that she'd have to burst his bubble this time. But she still couldn't help herself smiling at his words.

"I've missed that smile," he mused. "I know I've had a lot to do with it, but you've not smiled like that, in work, too much lately."

So he did remember. "Look… Obviously we've got a lot of things that went unsaid. But I'm not going to let any of that happen until your head CT comes back and I'm satisfied that you're well. Or have you forgotten that you practically keeled over on me?"

Iain smiled with his familiar sparkle. Instead of its old effect of making her weak at the knees, or its newer one of a stab of anger, Lily now felt an unexpected glow of forgiveness. It was suddenly much easier to let go of what wasn't important anymore. The small talk, while they waited for his CT results to come back, was not so excruciating as she had thought it would be.

It was Dylan who brought the iPad over to Iain's cubicle. He raised an eyebrow when he saw who had taken up the seat beside the bed, but he remained quiet. All kinds of strange things were happening in the aftermath of the accident, and Lily making peace with Iain appeared to be another of them.

Lily held out a hand expectantly, gesturing for the iPad.

"I'm already the second opinion, Lily," he said by way of polite refusal. "You've really had the royal treatment this evening, Iain."

Lily didn't remove her hand. "You didn't see that ambulance," she said, with a steely glare. "I realise it's probably unnecessary but I want to be the third pair of eyes to check the CT."

It would be unwise to argue. He handed it over, but continued speaking to Iain regardless. "Pending your __third__ opinion, of course," he said sarcastically, "you're concussed but that's all."

"You wouldn't be saying __that's all,__ if your head was pounding like mine," Iain replied. "Can I go home, then?"

"Yes. Unless the third opinion disagrees?"

Lily sighed and handed the iPad back, fed up of being teased. Both Iain and Dylan were now looking at her, Iain with faint amusement and the expectation of a puppy wondering if it would be walked any time soon. "No disagreement, although neither of you would be looking so smug if I __had__ spotted something!"

"You won't be discharged without supervision though, Iain, because of the concussion. I assume Gemma will be able to come for you?"

"Yeah, she'll love this early morning wake up call," Iain said, sarcastic but safe in the knowledge that Gem would indeed show up, sleepy or not, if it meant she could give him a good tongue-lashing for not having had anyone call her the very minute he was brought in. "No, she'll be here, no worries."

"You're still on obs until you're discharged, though —"

"I'll take them," Lily said, knowing that being in charge of Iain's neuro obs would give them a chance to talk. Iain, at least, seemed to have something left to say.

* * *

She shone a torch into his eyes, concentrating minutely on the contraction of his pupils. It seemed that he was reacting normally, so that was at least one thing crossed off the list of red flags. Both she and Iain were silent, though she was happier with this than he was.

"Lily?" he said, making her jump. "Sorry. And… I'm sorry about how things turned out between us."

She frowned, continuing with the neuro exam in silence for a few seconds before clearing her throat . "You weren't the only one at fault." And that was all she was prepared to say about their break-up: just because it was in the past didn't make it any less painful. She didn't like what she had become at the end of their relationship and reliving it was the last thing she wanted. Admitting her own partial guilt went some way to healing the wounds that she'd ripped open and only papered over in the time since.

"Yeah, I think we both could have done with doing things a bit differently."

Lily picked up his hands, and gently pulled them towards her. "Pull my hands back towards you?" she said, attempting to change the subject.

Iain did as he was told. He recognised what Lily was trying to do, though this didn't mean he was going to strictly let her do so. When she requested that he pushed her hands away, he hesitated.

"Iain? Hands? I'm responsible for your obs, I can't—" She stopped abruptly, as his hold on her hands changed from practical to kind.

He looked her in the eyes warmly. "I'm really pleased that you're happy now, with Ethan. You deserve to be happy."

She was stunned. "Thank you. That's so… Thank you."

"Lily Chao, lost for words? Never thought I'd see the day," Iain said, smiling cheekily.

The hug was purely platonic, but it was what she needed at that moment. Part of her broke away in it, the unfinished business that had been holding her hostage in Holby.

* * *

By the time Dylan returned to Sam's cubicle with her X-ray results, she had bitten a sore patch into her lower lip, worrying about what the consequences might be. When he pulled back the curtain she looked at him with deep-etched concern, which wasn't eased by his choice to sit beside her and put an arm around her (as carefully as he could, as she supported her bad arm with fingers still hooked into her collar and her good arm holding it securely under the elbow.)

"Just spit it out, Dylan, the waiting is worse than anything."

His face softened. "There's no fracture, of either your shoulder or your upper arm. The joint isn't damaged, and as far as I can see your old injury hasn't been affected, at least not in terms of the bones. It's all soft tissue."

The mental image of her X-ray would stay with him for a while. The black and white image was overwhelming with the long-held secrets it revealed. His eyes had rested on the evidence of her gunshot injury: metal plates and screws holding together fragments of bone that had been blown apart, and the soft fuzziness that showed where bones that should have been whole had slowly knitted back together again. His mind had settled into the familiar groove of guilt that he hadn't been there when she'd been shattered as easily as if she was made of glass. The recovery must have been long, and knowing Sam as he did, she would have loathed the feeling of helplessness. She was not the most patient of people, and neither was he — precisely the reason, perhaps, why he had not even been trusted to learn of her injury until tonight.

"Soft tissue? Thank god," Sam whispered hoarsely. Her eyes filled with tears that she was too tired to wipe away, even if she had been physically able to. It hurt, but she leaned harder into Dylan, comforted by his presence. She curled her head down and closed her leaking eyes.

Dylan held her close; who was he to say she couldn't do this, that hurt a little, after everything that she'd been through tonight? If she needed the comfort, then he was there. He brought his free arm up and rested his hand gently on the side of her head, his fingers in her hair. She let out a small, shuddering sob and he stroked her hair with his fingertips. "It's okay," he murmured. "You'll be alright, now. Although," he added, ribbing her a little, "most people get frustrated about soft tissue. They'd always rather have broken a bone because it heals faster…"

Sam sniffed and sat up, allowing herself a little smile. "Hm, but __most people__ don't have a history with gunshot trauma and blast injuries."

"Touché."

"What are you going to do with me, then?"

Dylan's lips twitched upwards slightly. "No special treatment, unfortunately. Painkillers, and you'll have a sling for twenty-four to forty-eight hours. Then…"

Sam rolled her eyes. "Yeah, yeah. Then __rest and take it easy, then try and use the joint as normally as possible__. You forget I've heard this all before, Grumpy."

* * *

Dylan pulled the Velcro apart and loosened the sling, much further than necessary, to avoid as much pain as he could for Sam. "Now," he said, "you're in control, here. I will manipulate your arm, but you have to stop me, if I'm hurting you too much. Don't just grit your teeth and put up with it."

"I thought you said I wasn't getting any special treatment?" Sam said wryly.

"Very funny."

It was definitely true that no patient had ever experienced Dylan like this, at his most gentle. They were silent while he worked, standing in front of her to carefully put her arm into the sling. Every movement was preceded by a glance, a momentary look into her eyes to check that what he was about to do, she understood and accepted. And she __did__ try to put a brave face on it, but he knew her too well. Dylan listened for every tiny hitch in her breath, taking each one as a wordless signal to pause and allow her to regroup.

"Thank you," she said, when it was all secure enough to no longer be quite so painful. "And… thank you for - for staying." She hoped he understood: she was so grateful for him taking such great care of her. But she knew too that their relationship had turned a significant corner tonight and it all seemed so much more grown-up now. Being married before was nothing, when they were bound by the thrill of having something forbidden, or by something that neither could define. No wonder they'd broken apart. Now… it felt like something had clicked, something had fixed, and maybe they'd be able to stay instead of leave.

"This time around, I'll always stay."

* * *

Sam was surprised to see a hunched figure on a bench in the Peace Garden, when she took a walk to get some fresh air and escape from the incessant noise of the ED. Once upon a time, the constant beeps and alarms had sounded like home. Now, they just reminded her of what she no longer had. It was bitterly cold. It had been a very long night.

Lily blinked, not quite believing what she was seeing as Sam took a seat next to her. She blew out a long, visible breath.

"I didn't know you were… up and about," she said. Her nerves to speak to Sam didn't emerge until halfway through her sentence. They were alone, and once upon a time Lily would have been spitting feathers, eager for an opportunity to tear into Sam. But there were no more reasons to: peace had been made with Iain, she was happy with Ethan and there was certainly no longer the going concern of Sam's presence destroying Dylan's mental stability.

"It's only soft tissue," Sam explain, stopping short of a nonchalant shrug. "Dylan stitched my head up and my shoulder was fine, nothing showed up on the X-ray—" She stopped. As far as Lily had known, the problem wasn't her shoulder. Sam didn't know how she'd talk her way out of this.

"And I thought it was your collarbone all along." Lily frowned. "That's something a decent clinician would have spotted."

Sam looked at her firmly. "I had my own reasons for being difficult. They were nothing to do with you, or your skill. And I'm sorry. You had a hard enough job out there, without me stopping you doing it… and refusing to accept that I wasn't the only one hurt. That was a good spot, with Iain. I would have taken him at his word, and it could have been so dangerous. You __are__ a good doctor, Lily. I trusted him too much. Afghanistan kind of lends that sort of thing… But you are good at knowing when trust isn't good enough."

"Thank you," she replied, ducking her head in embarrassment.

"There's something else I need to say, before I give in to this cold and go back inside," Sam said. "Thank you, __so much__ , for everything that you've done for Dylan."

Lily's mouth fell open. "It was nothing —"

"No, it wasn't. He was really unwell. He's only marginally less so now, but you made a difference."

Lily gave a small smile.

"You're allowed to be pleased with yourself!" Sam said, laughing a little. The movement in her shoulder didn't hurt as much as it had before. "If I was you, I'd be strutting around the place, thrilled to bits about sorting him out, and going to Hong Kong…"

It was a very hard thing for Lily to keep her cool: flying off the handle, when she and Sam had forged a shaky peace, would not be her best move. Yet under the surface, frustration bubbled like and unwatched pot. "Um, how did - how did you know about that?"

Sam looked confused. "There was an email sent by some guy out there. It went out to the whole Trust — I thought you knew?"

"I had no idea," Lily replied. She ran a hand over her hair and pressed her lips tightly together for a moment. "Will you excuse me? I need to see someone."

* * *

While she might have responded in a very measured way to Sam, as Lily stormed to Ethan's office she was absolutely furious. How could this have happened? This news was hers and hers alone — it should never have been released on anything but her own terms. Wild ideas ran through her mind: perhaps she could break into Ethan's office and somehow get into his computer to intercept the email before he had chance to read it. While there were a number of critical flaws in this plan, the largest was seated at his desk when Lily arrived at the office door.

Ethan's expression warmed when he waved her inside. He got up from his desk at once, smiling and oblivious to Lily's deeply hurt expression.

"He's really got no regard for time zones, has he? I suppose it's all official now, congratulations!"

"This is such a violation!" Lily exploded.

"What!?"

"How dare Archie Grayling be so presumptuous?" She sat down hard on the sofa and buried her head in her hands.

Ethan wondered at first if she was crying, but though she quivered, she was stonily silent. "You're not making a lot of sense, Lily, what do you mean?"

But Lily just shook her head. This was the last straw, took much had happened now and her head was full.

"Are you — is everything alright? You've been through a lot tonight, you don't have to keep pushing yourself. Are you sure you're doing okay?"

It was his kindness that tipped her over the edge. A barrage of tears tumbled from her eyes and she could hardly draw a breath between each sob. There was so much pent-up emotion pouring out: exhaustion, hurt, upset, frustration, confusion. She didn't know how she'd even begin to explain it all to Ethan.

He took up the space beside her on the sofa and held her as she shook, her sobs so forceful they reverberated through him too. "It's entirely natural to feel this way after witnessing a traumatic scene, especially if it involves people that you know. You're allowed to be upset; I'd be shocked if you tried to hold everything in. Look, you can always talk to me, or I can make sure that you've got someone to talk to, to help you process everything." He said all this quite quickly, before realising the error of his ways. "I'm sorry, that's all a bit much right now, isn't it? It's over now, and I'm here, " he summarised.

Lily's face screwed up in her effort to contain everything that was spilling over. "It's not that!" She sat back from Ethan's embrace but held his hands instead, squeezing them firmly. "I didn't want you to find out about Hong Kong like this," she said sadly. She blinked harder; it wasn't working to stem her emotions. "I didn't want you to hear it from a cold and heartless email, from Archie Grayling of all people, that I was going to accept the position."

Ethan looked deep into her eyes. He didn't tell her that he'd half-known already, thanks to Dylan's outburst of worry in the staffroom.

The brief time that they'd had together, had been wonderful. She'd made him the Clinical Lead he couldn't ever have seen himself becoming. She had been the only one to stand by him while Alicia's blog tore him to shreds, day on day. They'd fit together so well, but he had to let her fly free. He cleared his throat, not certain that his voice would hold out. "I'm so proud of you," he began. "You worked… you worked so hard to earn that job. You're going to do amazing things, in bigger and better places than here."

Lily was silent, thinking hard. Her heart shattered with the realisation that there was no-one in her life who had ever been so kind and thoughtful towards her as Ethan had. She suspected that she wouldn't come across someone like him again: he was her once-in-a-lifetime, which was what made leaving him so difficult.

* * *

Holby, December 2017

"Dr Chao, that was a __very__ impressive show that you put on, this afternoon," Archie said smoothly. He pushed a glass of wine across the table and Lily smiled tightly.

She had assumed that his invitation was an open one to the other applicants and his team — when he had loudly invited her for a drink this evening, in front of everyone, it had certainly seemed do. But this bar was far too intimate, and Archie Grayling made her so uncomfortable that she could hardly stay still on her seat. She took a drink, hoping that the alcohol might be enough to settle her malaise.

"It wasn't a show, Mr Grayling." It was hard not to sound stiff, but she resented the allegation that her presentation and interview had been pure pretence.

"Of course not," he replied, tapping his nose in a patronising manner. "And there's no need for such formality when we're away from the hospital, __Lily.__ 'Archie' will be just fine."

The way he'd said her name… There was something about it that made the back of her neck prickle uneasily. In an underhand way, he was being derogatory towards her efforts today. Why couldn't he appreciate that she'd worked so hard and spoken so passionately because she wanted bigger and better things than Holby was prepared to offer?

"You're exactly the kind of woman we want on the team in Hong Kong." His eyes lingered a little too long before he continued. "Hardworking, good at following guidelines, able to turn a hand to any topic. With research of course."

Lily frowned. The topic of her presentation had not been new to her: she had chosen it for the very reason that she had prior vested interest in the subject. She knew it was a flashy topic by everyday standards, but she couldn't help being fascinated by it, and she'd known she had a good chance of impressing the panel with it.

And what on earth had he meant by his comment about following instructions? She sipped her wine out of politeness this time — it was expensive (Archie seemed as though he was trying to impress her somehow) and she didn't want to appear ungrateful. As he continued making flat comments, she tried to tune him out, until she knew she had to set him straight.

"...and it won't even matter about your reference, you're —"

"Why not?" she challenged, very aware that she was on shaky ground by challenging her potential employer so forcefully. "My reference will be very professionally complimentary. I've made a lot of progress in my time at Holby." She was aware of her explosion of frankness, and swallowed hard.

"Of course it will, of course it will." Archie's soft tone was laced with oversweetness. "I'm sure Dr Hardy will have nothing but pleasantries for you. I only meant that a woman like you has no need of the approval of a brand-new, inexperienced, squeaky-clean Clinical Lead. You don't need his words, not to make it on my team."

Lily narrowed her eyes, taking offence at the way he casually disparaged Ethan.

"This is what is so admirable about you," Archie went on. "You'll always stand up for what you believe in…"

The corners of her mouth turned upwards slightly.

"...whether you are correct or not."

Her face dropped.

"Like I said, an attractive woman like you will have no problem finding her place in my team." He reached his hand across the table and put it possessively over Lily's free one.

She froze, meeting his eyes and trying to assess his motive, while feeling faintly like an unarmed gladiator being presented to a pride of lions. Why had she agreed to this evening at all? His comment had deepened Lily's internal conflict ten-fold. She put her glass down firmly, pulled her hand away from his (attempting to take back a little control) and sat up straighter, affronted. "I hope that you're referring to professional attractiveness, __Mr Grayling.__ " She used his title strongly, hoping to remind him of what was at stake here.

"Oh please," he replied breezily. "Surely a clever girl like you can recognise a compliment when it's tossed your way!"

"I - well…" Lily stumbled over the words. The compliment was veiled in such blatant sexism and patronising delivery that she questioned her reaction and wondered if she was the one in the wrong this evening. Was she overreacting? Was she just making a fuss out of nothing?

"Isn't Hong Kong what you want? A fresh start?"

She saw a sharp glint in Archie's eye. She'd mentioned her ardent desire for a new beginning, as a response to an interview questions. Once again she analysed herself, unable to determine his motive. Was he proving that he'd paid attention to what she'd said, or needling her by talking down her current work situation? It was true that it would be wonderful to escape the tumultuous ED scenario that she found herself trapped in.

She relaxed a little. "It is," she said wistfully. The compliment of her intelligence washed over her wine-softened mind. In the morning, she would remember kindness, not his stepping way over the line.

* * *

Holby City Hospital, January 2018

Lily was silent, thinking hard.

"I've been thinking," Ethan said. "If you needed to store anything, when you leave, you're more than welcome to leave it with me. I know you'll - you'll be going in a hurry now, so you can leave it at my place and I'll keep it in my spare room for as long as you need." His voice quivered as he spoke.

Lily changed her mind one final time.

He loved her, and she loved him. He was deeply upset but he was still prepared to give her up if it was what she wanted. Part of her wanted to accept his help in getting ready for Hong Kong. But…

She thought with a new clarity upon her evening with Archie Grayling, and the way he'd made her feel. They had not been compliments at all. And she imagined that she could expect much of the same prejudice and patronisation if she took the position, even though she would have moved six thousand miles and uprooted her whole life.

"Ethan, you don't have to do that," she said, before taking a deep breath.

"I know I don't," he countered. "I just want to make this easier for you."

Lily felt herself shiver. "No. I mean… You don't have to do it because… Because I'm not going."

"What?!" He was aghast. "No. No, if this is because of me, I —"

She gave him a soft smile, the adrenaline rush of finally making up her mind combining with the realisation of everything that had happened tonight, to make her suddenly very tired. "Of course it's you — but not how you expect," she added quickly, seeing his face fall. "I was kidding myself that it would be some incredible new beginning, but I was never going out there for me. It's complicated, but I wanted to be away from here, away from being alone and… everything that happened with Iain and Sam. But," she said, thinking of how things had shifted with those two, "I don't think that's as important anymore. I wanted to do it for my father, really, because it was exactly what he expected from me and what all my family wanted me to do. But - um - someone convinced me that I have to decide for myself what's important." She thought of Dylan, and what he'd said all that time ago. It felt like a lifetime away. "And I know now, that what Archie Grayling convinced me was a professional compliment, was just him trying to flatter me, and —" It wasn't anything that she wanted to disclose to Ethan. Not tonight. "His research position is not important. What __is,__ is how much I've changed in this ED. How much I've grown up, I suppose. And it's you. It's always been you, and I don't know why it's taken me so long to realise it."

Ethan looked slightly conflicted for a moment. "I don't think that I've every heard you say so much in one go," he said with a wry smile.

Lily's cheeks coloured.

"Are you sure it's what you want?" he pressed. "If it is, then you know I'll support you, but if it's a decision just based on tonight…"

"It's not," she assured him. "It's based on… the last few months, everything that's happened. And learning to trust my judgement, for once."

She'd felt so alone, when she sent that application to Hong Kong. But she couldn't leave for a rash decision made when her world looked very different. She had been a different person, then.

She kissed him, soft at first then harder, like she never wanted it to end. The rest of the shift couldn't wait long, but a few seconds longer with Ethan were worth it, even if they had years and years ahead of them.


	25. Chapter 25

**This is my final chapter before the epilogue, I hope it fulfils expectation and ties up Sam and Dylan's story well enough!**

* * *

Holby City Hospital, January 2018

It wasn't morning yet, but Dylan was overwhelmed: he wanted to go home, despite seeing it in black and white terms as a cowardly admission to ask for this small concession after such a difficult night. He had reached his limit. He traced the light switch on the staffroom wall with his fingertip and touched the door handle six times before the OCD let him walk out into the ED. If anyone had seen this little ritual, the game would have been up — there were so few people that he trusted with this, that he'd come to believe most of the rest of the world was out to get him an report him for his mental instability.

Lily caught his eye and stopped him when he was half-way back to Sam's cubicle.

"Iain's neuro obs were all clear," she said. "Gem's just taken him home."

It took a moment for Dylan to focus. "Oh. Good."

She pushed her glasses up and assessed him with a worried gaze. "Things aren't good, are they?"

"No," he admitted, not even able to tag on that most British of stoic taglines, __I'll be fine.__

"Go home."

"As if, Lily." He didn't say it rudely, just… desperately. "I've got hours to go; I'm needed here, we're not in a position to lose an consultant."

She couldn't dispute him, even though his logic was deeply flawed. "Go and be with Sam," she said instead. Nobody would challenge him for this, and he would at least still be in the department, which in his vulnerable state might be the best thing for him.

Dylan nodded, not flinching or even noticing when she put a hand momentarily on his shoulder before turning and heading away.

* * *

"Hey," Sam said, sitting up with some difficulty the moment he came into the cubicle.

He hummed in return and sat on the end of her bed. He rested his elbows on his knees as a base to lean forward and steeple his fingers.

"Is it getting bad?" she asked quietly, though she thought she already knew the answer.

"Not… not really. I just need to go home now," he murmured. "I'm tired, and there's so much changing. And I need to take care of you."

Sam drew her legs up and sat cross-legged. She held his hand: she didn't know what else to do. He had hours left, if the shift was cruel enough to need them all. "Look, I know there's been a lot, tonight. But I have to add one more thing. I need to tell you —"

Ethan stuck his head around the curtain of the cubicle. He looked relieved and apologetic in equal measure. "I'm glad I've found you, sorry to interrupt. Dr Keogh, can I borrow you a moment?"

"Of course," Dylan replied, having sat straight upright from the instant the curtain was pulled back.

Sam sighed as the two men exited the cubicle. If Ethan was about to drop a patient on Dylan — she didn't know whether it would help him or not. He was so mentally depleted, she suspected that his compulsion were making themselves heard, but would it be morally unsound to take a patient as a distraction?

"Dylan, are things… okay?"

"Yes." It was exactly as unconvincing out loud, as it felt in his head as an intangible thought. In any case, he was better than the last conversation he and Ethan had shared.

"You've done enough tonight. You can go home now."

Dylan responded with an incredulous expression. "You're meant — I thought —" He took a breath and composed himself. "You're Clinical Lead. You have to make decisions that are best for the department. Sending a consultant home is not—"

"No," Ethan countered calmly. "I'm Clinical Lead, ergo I have to make decisions that are best for the people __in the department__ , including my team. And by extension, you."

Dylan was silent.

"Look around. The shift is more than half over; we're perfectly able to manage what's left. It's not a crime to accept that you've been through enough. I'm not going to hold it against you. Go home." He said the last two words firmly and kindly.

Dylan nodded. "Okay." He thought for a moment, then spoke to cover his tracks. "In any case, Sam will need looking after."

* * *

Back in the cubicle, his aimless gaze worried Sam. She was immediately ready to spring to his defence: "What has he done? If he's given you another patient, I'll —"

"He hasn't," Dylan replied quietly.

"You don't need this, you — wait, what?" She turned her reaction right down and moved so that she sat closer to him: he'd positioned himself at the far end of her bed, and with her legs drawn up and crossed he had felt far away. His psychological distance only increased this.

Dylan sighed. "He's sending me home," he said guiltily.

Sam's face softened into a sympathetic smile. "That's not a punishment, Dylan. That's a good thing. Do you realise how many people there are in the world who feel the same as you do, who don't have that kind of support? I know it's not what you want to hear, but one day you'll be able to see how lucky you are, that you've got a Clinical Lead who's going to accommodate your hard days."

He was quiet, knowing that she was right even if he didn't want to believe it. "Please come home with me, Samantha." He turned to look at her, and she kissed his stubbly jawline softly.

"Of course I will." She took his hand. "It will get better."

He squeezed her hand. "Especially if I'm with you."

Sam smiled. If anyone else had said that, it might have been a throwaway comment. But from Dylan, it was equal to shouting from the rooftops. On a night like this, it was the closest to 'I love you' that she'd get. And the words that he had chosen, meant more to her than anything else.

* * *

Dylan's tension melted away, the moment his front door was closed. It was only then that the tiredness hit him: both he and Sam could do little more than split the two most important tasks (making coffee and lighting the log burner) before sitting down on the sofa, slightly dazed. For a few minutes they were silent, appreciating the very first lights of dawn that danced across the sky. Dervla made herself comfortable between them and the fire, happy that both of her people were back in the same place, blissfully unaware of the changes between them, that meant it would be very difficult for them to break apart again.

After a while, Dylan put down his cup. "You had something that you wanted to tell me," he stated lucidly, suddenly remembering. "When Ethan came to send me home." He looked at Sam, who shifted uncomfortably. "Do you want to… tell me now?"

She put her cup down too. "Yes," she said, not looking at him for a few seconds. "I've wanted to explain to you, so many times, but there's never been… I've never found the words. I need you to know why I understand…" She paused.

"Understand what?"

"The mental health side of things," she said at last. "When we argued, earlier, you said that I couldn't ever understand what it was like to lose control of my mind."

Dylan's heart sank. "Oh, Sam, I'm sorry — I was angry, I didn't think —"

"I know you didn't, and you couldn't have known, anyway. It was a long time ago, after we separated, after I went to Afghanistan for the last time, and… after I was discharged, from hospital and the army…"

Slowly, she told him everything. It was warm and comfortable, sitting there with him, and though the words came slowly at first, his presence made them come easier. She spilled it all, things she hadn't spoken about for years.

Pain. Survivor's guilt. Pain. Medical discharge from the army. Pain. The difficult months with her parents. Learning to manage her injury. The return to Oxford, and all the emotional hurt it carried.

Depression.

Sometimes, tears sprang into her eyes as she recalled something particularly difficult. And Dylan was always there. When a few tears slid down her cheeks, he pulled the sleeve of his jumper down over his hand and dabbed them dry.

Eventually, she told him about the day Iain had saved her from herself.

"He pulled me out of my head on a… on a __dark__ day. I'd given up, and he somehow got things back right again. That's why I always found it so easy, working with him in the ambulance. We just found a rhythm — I trust him, you know. He was there when I didn't… when there wasn't any point, anymore."

Dylan, who had been respectfully quiet while she poured out her story, finally spoke. "I wish I could have been there for you."

She shook her head. "No. The only looking back we do now, is to see what we shouldn't do this time around. You're not looking back to punish yourself. I think we've both done enough of that."

"Mm, I suppose so."

"You're here now, Dylan, and that's what matters. Having you understand now, is enough."

She yawned, and he held her against his chest. He kissed the top of her head. "When did you get such an old head on those shoulders?" He smiled a little.

* * *

It was entirely mutual, their arrangement on the small sofa as night turned to day. Daylight trickled through the windows, but neither moved to close the gap in the curtains. Sam, sitting between Dylan's legs and curled up against his chest, fell asleep first. She was comforted by his safe hold on her, his gently thudding heartbeat in her ear and the second dose of painkillers which she'd remembered, late, when even sitting still became eye-wateringly uncomfortable. Dylan took longer to fall asleep, even though he made every effort to slow his breathing to combat his racing thoughts. But he did drift off, settled by Sam's unconsciously heavy leaning on him.

* * *

 _ _She was here somewhere, he knew it. He sprinted down seemingly endless corridors, searching everywhere for her. The hospital was an unfamiliar maze; his heart rate increased until his mouth was almost too dry to beg information of everyone he came across.__

 _"_ _ _Sam who?"__

 _"_ _ _No idea where she is?"__

 _"_ _ _I don't know who you're talking about…"__

 _ _They were people who should have known — who should have cared that Sam was lying in a bed somewhere, wounded and alone.__

 _ _At last, a friendly face at the end of a sea of disgust. He almost fell over himself, not pausing to question what she was doing here.__

 _"_ _ _Zoe," he breathed. "Where's Sam? I need to find her, I—"__

 _"_ _ _Slow down," Zoe replied, holding the tops of his arms firmly and looking directly into his eyes. "This way, but you need to know… She's in a bad way, Dylan. That ambulance was a mess, and she's not come round yet. They can't work out what's wrong with her."__

 _ _Dylan's heart leapt into his throat. He held the information that they didn't have, he was sure of it.__

 _"_ _ _If there's anything you've not said to her," Zoe went on gravely, "then I'd say it now."__

 _ _He followed his friend into a side room, and stood in the doorway, aghast, before slowly making his way towards Sam. She was unconscious, somehow dwarfed by the bed which made her seem like a little girl, not the strong woman he knew she was. She was battered and broken; the monitors attached to her gave only bad news.__

 _"_ _ _She's losing blood somewhere," another doctor said, confused. "None of the scans are showing it up, but she's fading fast."__

 _"_ _ _Her shoulder," Dylan blurted out. "She was shot in Afghanistan, seven years ago. Left shoulder. Check her left shoulder."__

 _ _While the team looking after Sam mumbled in agreement, no-one was looking at Sam. Not until her monitors went wild.__

 _ _Dylan looked at her in alarm as she regained consciousness suddenly and sat up, pulling dangerously at her tubes and wires. He winced, but she seemed oblivious to it all in her blind fury.__

 _"_ _ _How could you!" she said, her eyes blazing. "How could you tell them about that?!"__

 _"_ _ _I - I had to!" he stammered. He backed away from the bed in shock. "You were - Samantha, why don't you understand?"__

 _"_ _ _It's you that doesn't understand," she spat. She wheezed and coughed. "I should never have trusted you."__

 _ _Dylan staggered backwards. Every irrational worry he'd had about fixing things with Sam was coming to fruition in one cruel moment.__

 _"_ _ _You never deserved to know."__

 _ _His face crumpled, wrought with deep-seated upset. But his expression changed to alarm when Sam's fragile form forced itself out of the bed and across the room towards him, dragging wires and sending her monitors wild. She only made it a few steps, however, before howling in pain. She let out a ragged breath but her angry glare remained locked on him.__

 _"_ _ _Sam, stop it, this is killing you!" he cried, eyes wide though he wished he wasn't seeing this scene.__

 _ _Her breaths were shallow and uneven. She opened her mouth a couple of times and let out no words, only pained sounds. And then she released her final blow.__

 _"_ _ _Good."__

 _ _With that, she collapsed.__

 _ _The flatline sound was deafening.__

* * *

Dylan jolted awake from his nightmare, unintentionally moving Sam too, who had still been sleeping soundly against him.

"Ouch," Sam said sleepily, rubbing her eyes and sitting up properly.

"I'm sorry… I'm so sorry, Sam, I didn't…" He gasped for breath. After a few seconds he had regained some composure. "Sorry. Um… nightmare."

"Yeah, I know what those feel like," she replied. "I've had a few."

She lay back against him, but he shook his head, frowning. "No, I can't let you fall asleep on me again. What if I hurt you? What if I do something to your shoulder? What if—"

Sam tilted her head right back to look up at him, and bit her lip. "What if, what if!" She regretted her choice of words immediately. "No, that's not what I meant… I know what it's like, getting tangled up in the what-ifs." She sighed. "Look, you go to bed, and I'll be right here, if it happens again." She sat up and shuffled inelegantly away from him, leaving him space to get out.

He thought hard, and then at his bedroom door, only a stone's throw from where Sam sat, trying to find a comfortable position on the sofa, he paused.

"Samantha?"

She turned to look at him. "Hmm?"

He pressed his lips together for a second. His heart still hadn't slowed down from the nightmare, but it thundered especially hard for a few beats. "C… Come with me?"

* * *

An outsider looking down on the bedroom would easily have mistaken them for a long-married couple. Sam, in a borrowed t-shirt, was propped lovingly against pillows to cushion her shoulder. She had woken briefly to find Dylan curled towards her, and though she was half-asleep she smiled, placing a gentle hand on his back. Sleep had erased the night's trauma from his face. She closed her eyes and drifted off again, hoping for similar results.

They had unconsciously retaken the sides of the bed that they had always occupied when they were married.

* * *

When Sam woke again, it was mid-afternoon and the room was bright, although the curtains were still closed. She was stiff and sore, but she still let out a relieved breath through her nose, the corners of her lips turning upwards. She was okay.

The other side of the bed was empty, and for a moment her breath hitched in her throat. But she could hear the shower, and she relaxed at once.

It was going to hurt, but her physio couldn't wait. If she started now, she might be finished before Dylan came back from his shower, and she wasn't sure she was ready to show off her scarring just yet.

When they'd come to bed, she'd forced him to face the other way while she changed, and he'd been too tired to argue (his arguments being that he'd probably seen worse in the ED, and that he'd seen her body numerous times before; it wasn't anything new to him.) She worried about what he'd think of her scar — she worried about his worries, and how far they might go. Because there was nothing to be done about her injury now. The physio would continue indefinitely, and her scar would last forever.

In Dylan's temporary absence, she changed as quickly as she could without help, back into the vest top she had worn yesterday under her paramedic uniform. Luckily the chill of the night had meant she hadn't sweated in it too much, not that she had any other clothing options. She was grateful of how cosy the boat was: in her own flat she wouldn't have dreamt of sitting on top of the covers in just a vest top and knickers at this time of year. But Dylan had obviously taken the time to switch on the heating and relight the log burner when he got up. When they'd lived in draughty houses on army patches, he'd always complained bitterly and hated the cold. He was obviously making up for lost time now.

The stretches, which were engraved in her memory and were usually mechanical, took much longer that morning. She tried to go slowly, but that didn't stop her wincing and breathing sharply when her care wasn't enough.

"Samantha…" Dylan said in a low voice.

She flinched, and turned sharply around on the bed. "Ow, shit — how long have you been standing there?" She looked at him, leaning on the door frame in pyjama bottoms and no t-shirt, his hair still damp. She could guess that it was long enough, and that his eyes had been locked on the strange, pink, puckered skin on her back for the whole time.

"I didn't know you were awake," he said gently. "I didn't rush back to see what you didn't want to show. I'm sorry, I should have —"

Sam sighed. "Don't apologise." Slowly, she turned so that her back was to him again. "I think I need you to see it. I can't keep it hidden forever, not if we're… Well, you know what I mean. I can't keep it from you."

Cautiously, he made his way to the bed, and knelt behind her.

His touch on the sensitive skin made her shiver; he moved away at once.

"No," she said, "no, it's… it's okay. It just surprised me, I didn't know how it would feel, and how __I__ would feel about it."

"And?"

She rolled her eyes. "Don't make me spell it out, Grumpy."

"Unfortunately, my powers of reading your mind are a little rusty, so you're going to have to."

She bit her lip and turned back to face him. "I didn't hate it."

He kissed her cheek, the beginning of a smile on his face replacing the concern he'd shown when examining her scar. He lay down against her stack of pillows and gently pulled her down so he could hold her. "Now you're beginning to sound like me, good grief! Isn't that what people always say couples do?"

Sam couldn't conceal her joy as she smiled at the ceiling. He'd gone and said it, so it had to be real. This wasn't __just__ something catalysed by the ambulance crash. What they had, what they'd always had, was real. "I love you, you know?"

Dylan's eyebrows furrowed; he was glad she couldn't see the turmoil he suddenly felt at hearing those words come from her lips. "Only a fool would fall in love with me," he said, a little sadly.

She rolled over, hissing when it smarted in her shoulder. She propped herself up on one elbow. "Then call me a fool, Dylan." With her sore arm, she reached for his hand, and to her pleasure, he squeezed her hand in return.

Equilibrium had been restored; a far better one than they'd ever had previously. They had found their trust.


	26. Epilogue

**This is the longest fic I've ever written, and I'm sad to see it go! It's been heavy going at times, but for the most part it's been a joy, and I hope that you've enjoyed reading it.**

 **theverystuffoflife, don't hate me too much for one particular decision I've made...**

 **And ficmouse, thank you.**

* * *

Holby, Three Years Later

When Lily formed her signature in the signing in and out book, there was not the great rush of emotion that she had half-expected to come with starting her final shift at Holby ED. She was strangely nostalgic though, for all the time that had passed, for the woman she used to be, and for the progress that she had made. She hesitated, her pen hovering just above her neat signature.

"Having second thoughts?" Ethan teased, standing behind her.

She turned around and side-stepped away from the book to leave him space to start his own shift in the usual way. "About what?" she returned, her tone equally teasing as she discreetly tucked her delicate gold chain under her blouse.

Ethan put a hand over his heart in mock horror, and opened his mouth to speak, but Lily put one finger over his lips.

"We agreed, not one word, remember?"

"I remember," he replied, kissing her fingertip.

Connie Beauchamp walked over to them, once again balanced on patent stiletto heels that seemed impossibly tall for an Emergency Department. "Good morning, you two. Looking forward to today?"

Ethan nodded at once. "Lots of 'lasts' to be done; we've got plenty to do before we leave for Oslo."

"Not to mention the patients who still require your _full_ attention," Connie said, raising one eyebrow fiercely. While Ethan blustered, she winked at Lily.

Lily held his arms and squeezed it. "She's joking," she said gently. He relaxed somewhat under her touch.

Connie gave them both a small smile. "It's been a pleasure to have you both working in my department. I can only hope that your presence in Norway will be felt as keenly as it will be missed here."

"Thank you," Ethan replied, smiling genuinely. After a few seconds, he seemed to recover from his ordeal with the Clinical Lead. "I hope we'll be lucky enough to have the same opportunities as we've had here."

"And a similar experience of such a close knit team, in both of our new departments," Lily chipped in.

When they moved, they would no longer be working together: Ethan had secured a consultancy post in the Emergency Department of the same hospital where Lily would be joining the team performing cutting-edge medical research.

She fidgeted nervously with the clasp at the back of her necklace. "Mrs Beauchamp, would I be able to speak with you for a few minutes?"

Connie nodded amicably and led Lily away to her office.

* * *

The ED was back to normal, Lily thought, steered once more by the woman who had made the position of Clinical Lead entirely her own – far more successfully on her second return from extended leave, than her first.

"Is everything alright," Connie asked, sitting at her desk and gesturing to a seat for Lily.

She sat down before speaking and took a breath. "Yes," she replied. "There are just a few things that I'm not content to leave unsaid, before I leave this place. If the ED has taught me anything, above all it's that life is too short. You have to say... what's important."

Connie leaned back in her seat a little, folding her hands on the desk. "Very true." She gestured that Lily should go ahead.

"It's be an absolute privilege to work in your emergency department. I've always admired you and the way you work, and I'm so grateful for having had the chance to work alongside you and make progress under your supervision."

"That's – I..." Connie stammered. "That's so kind of you to say." She gave Lily a small smile, acutely aware of how far she'd now come from the F2 Connie had first met.

"If it's not out of line for me to say," Lily went on, "then... I especially admire you for how you've come back, in the wake of everything that you went through, being so unwell. I hold it in exceptional regard, to have been able to look up to you and your resilience, and have your mentorship. Thank you." She looked down at her lap, thinking that she'd gone too far, regardless of this being exactly what she set out to say.

Connie, blown away, pressed her lips together firmly. She blinked slowly and stood up. As she stepped around the desk to Lily, she still hadn't spoken. It wasn't until she was perched on the desk, in front of Lily, that she broke her silence. "If I have had anything to do with it, then I would consider it a great honour, but do you know what I see in front of me, this morning?"

"I don't, no," Lily whispered.

"I see a bright young woman who has _flourished_ here. One who doesn't always see how brilliant she is, but believe me, Lily, you are shining today. You've made so much progress here; now you need to spread your wings and make a difference somewhere new. I am _proud_ of you and what you have achieved. Oslo won't know what's hit it."

Lily was stunned. She had come in here intending to give compliments, not receive them. But now, she felt as though she was glowing inside, not to mention that an enormous weight had been lifted from her shoulders. She had spent her life desperate to make her father proud, and the last few months wondering if the research fellowship in Norway would be what he wanted for her. Hearing such kindness though, from someone she respected so highly, suddenly meant more to her than the years of worry and unanswered questions. She smiled, mildly embarrassed but so deeply pleased. She stood up; it felt just lovely to step into Connie's outstretched arms, to hug and be hugged.

* * *

"Can I help it, if I'm cursed with Irish skin that burns at first exposure to sunlight?"

Zoe laughed, turning into the sun as her best friend shuffled down the bench towards the shade. It was a warm day, not entirely typical of Britain in late June.

"Sam thinks it's funny," Dylan remarked, easing the collar of his shirt away from the pink, sore skin at the back of his neck.

"Well, she would, wouldn't she? She only needs one look at the sun and she's as if she's spent three weeks in the Med!"

She'd missed this, joking with and at the expense of her best friend during odd minutes stolen from long shifts.

Dylan was careful to keep conversation light: he was very aware of it being six months to the day since the passing of Nick Jordan, something which carried a long healing process for Zoe. It might have been the platonic sort, but she had loved him and his loss had hit her with the force of a freight train. She had taken care of him at the end, something which she wasn't prepared yet to say anything about besides that things had changed very quickly. She had been a different woman, when Dylan and Sam had flown out to Michigan in the second week of February, for the funeral. But back in Holby (a monumental decision in itself) much of her original light had begun to make a flickering return.

A thought struck Zoe. "You and Sam, you're alright, aren't you? Only..." She hesitated, unwilling to say that she'd seen them argue that morning.

Dylan froze. This didn't fit the remit of keeping things light, even though nothing had happened between him and Sam.

"I know what you're doing, Dylan. I'm very, _very_ aware of the date, but you really don't have to make everything seem soft and fluffy for me." She watched him squirm slightly where he sat. She rubbed the glass pendant of her necklace with her thumb and forefinger. The translucent glass had a blue-green swirl through its centre: only Dylan knew that the swirl was partly made up of a tiny fraction of Nick's ashes.

"Soft and fluffy?" Dylan said, his voice laden with mock horror and disgust. "For you? Never."

She raised her eyebrows. "It was a valiant effort, but the grieving process has not pulled the wool over my eyes. Now, answer the question, you and Sam."

He sighed, which turned into a sigh of relief when the sun moved behind a bank of cloud. "There's nothing amiss between us, I can assure you. This morning's 'dispute', which was barely that but is what I assume you're alluding to, was purely down to mutual stubbornness."

"No change there, then."

"None whatsoever," he said with a nonchalant shrug. His vague explanation was the truth. As he and Sam had walked to work that morning, a request that she take it easy (on account of being inexplicably tired and generally feeling unwell) had been taken the wrong way and escalated. As usual, neither had been prepared to back down.

They were silent for a few seconds.

"Dylan?"

"Hmm?"

"It's really good to be back here. Especially with you... today." She moved up closer to him on the bench. It was something of a comfort, that he allowed her to lean on him a little, consumed temporarily by deep thoughts and the looming cloak of grief.

* * *

Dylan and Sam happened to leave resus at the same time, early in the afternoon. She looked a little pale which instantly had him feeling concerned, but he decided to rein this in, in lieu of starting another argument. Where once the cruel little voice of OCD might have worked its way up and out, Dylan could quiet it now. That wasn't to say that it was gone, but today at least, he knew for sure that being a little off-colour wasn't going to bring about Sam's demise.

"Busy shift?" he asked as she fell into step with him.

"No, just about normal." She slipped her hand into his. "About this morning –"

"Don't. I know I shouldn't have pushed it. You're not my medical student now, you can take care of yourself." It wasn't always easy, _not_ taking responsibility for her as if she was still so young.

"Maybe I shouldn't have flown off the handle, either. You and your omnipotent-complex again!" She yawned, and leaned on him as they walked in the direction of the staff room. "I'm so fed up of being tired!"

"You've had an intense few shifts with not much sleep in between, I'm not entirely surprised it's caught up with you."

Sam frowned in confusion. "How do you know I've not been sleeping?"

"Simple," he replied, pushing the door open. "The light's not on when my alarm goes off. Meaning that you've either not slept until it's been light, or you've woken up far too early and been conscious enough to turn the light off before falling asleep again."

"Alright, point proven, Sherlock Holmes," she said, deliberately winding him up because she knew it would needle him that she hadn't labelled him with the elder Holmes brother, the self-professed 'smart one.' It was incredible, really. He knew her better than she knew herself, sometimes. He was certainly the only one who could read her with any accuracy whatsoever.

"I have something to make you feel better." He led her to his locker, where he presented her with a bar of Cadbury's Fruit and Nut. Her favourite, but he shrugged nonchalantly. "In any case, a little sugar and caffeine might help you feel more awake."

She smiled, touched by the tiny gesture although she couldn't think of anything worse at that moment, than adding chocolate to her almost-empty, very unsteady stomach. She hugged him, and it really did improve how she was feeling, to have him wrap his arms firmly around her, and kiss the side of her neck.

"I need to go and get some fresh air, before the next call comes in," she said quietly, breaking out of the comforting embrace.

"Can I go with you?" He thought that she sounded worn out, despite the time of day, and if she still felt poorly then he wanted to be there with her.

Sam opened her mouth to protest that she would be fine, when Dylan's pager beeped in his pocket.

He checked it. "Resus." He was already halfway to the door.

"That answers that question then," she said, smirking. "I'm fine, promise."

* * *

"Lily?"

The registrar was signing off patient notes as Sam passed her, on her way outside. She smiled.

"If I don't see you, before your shift ends," Sam said, "I want to with you luck. Not that you need it – you worked so hard for this and you deserve all the success that'll come your way with it."

Lily smiled more warmly. She and Sam didn't do hugs, but they were firm friends and she knew that Sam meant her kind words with the utmost sincerity. "Thank you," she replied, looking away and feeling as though she didn't quite deserve everyone's well-wishes.

Sam regarded her seriously. "Before you say it, yes, you are good enough, yes, you dodged a bullet by rejecting that slimeball Grayling –" She gave Lily a knowing look. At one time she had used far more colourful language than 'slimeball' to describe Archie, his remarks and his advances. "And just because you won't be on the front line anymore, doesn't make you any less important to medicine."

Lily dropped her gaze to the floor. These were worries she had vocalised many times. More than anyone, Sam understood what it meant to change one's role significantly in the medical world.

"They wouldn't have chosen you, if they didn't want you. They don't have sleazy ulterior motives. You'll be okay. Go and enjoy it."

"I will. Thank you, Sam."

She nodded reassuringly. "Look after yourself."

"Only if you and Zoe can keep Dylan in line!" Lily retorted cheekily.

Sam rolled her eyes. This was a far loftier ask than hers had been of Lily. Looking after yourself in a foreign country was nothing, compared to trying to keep Dylan Keogh in line.

* * *

"You know, I don't think I've ever been thankful for a hoax call, before today," Iain remarked as he drove the ambulance in the direction of base.

When Sam spoke, it was weakly and quietly, through gritted teeth. "In fairness, one did end with you cartwheeling an ambulance down the road."

Iain blew out a long breath caked in melodrama. "Low blow, that one, mate!"

That was how they addressed that horrific crash, having put years between themselves and that traumatic night. There had been various stages of mental recovery in the meantime, but they had reached a level that they were comfortable with: cracking the occasional dark joke about it all.

Iain knew that Sam's gritted teeth were not due to anger, nor was her stony silence in any way the result of a dispute. She wasn't even bothered about the hoax – she _had_ been, until she'd fainted on the pavement outside the address they'd been given by Control.

* * *

" _Control to 3006, stand down, repeat, stand down. Confirmed hoax call."_

 _Iain stared incredulously at the radio in his hand. "You've got to be kidding me, are you –"_

 _But he was interrupted._

 _"_ _Iain?" Sam said, sounding worried. "I – I'm not feeling so good."_

 _He wheeled around at once. She'd been off-colour all day, but she was suddenly a stark shade of pale that meant only one thing..._

 _..._

 _Her eyes opened; she blinked rapidly against the brightness of the sky. Iain was right there, his image swimming into clarity. It took a moment to register that he was holding her hand._

 _"_ _Okay?" he asked, concerned._

 _She frowned a little. "Sorry," she said as she gently pulled her hand free of his and covered her face, deeply embarrassed. "How long was I out for?"_

 _Iain laughed, some of the worry melting away from his face. "Can't you switch off your medical brain for five minutes? Let someone else do the thinking?"_

 _"_ _No," she replied, looking at him expectantly until he gave in._

 _"_ _Less than sixty seconds. Probably closer to forty, but unfortunately I didn't start a stopwatch when you hit the deck."_

 _Sam sat up carefully. "So I'm alright?"_

 _"_ _You tell me! Are you still dizzy, nauseous or seeing stars?"_

 _"_ _Iain, it's just a hot day and I've not drunk enough."_

 _"_ _Answer the questions, then." He wasn't going to let this drop. Perfectly healthy people didn't faint for no reason, but if she really was just dehydrated, then he'd never let her live it down._

 _"_ _A little, yes, and no." She smiled sarcastically,_

* * *

When the ambulance was stationary at a set of traffic lights, Iain looked across the cab to Sam. She rested her head on the window, seeming to drowsily tune out her surroundings.

"I've seen pregnant women deal better with heat than you!" he said. "What happened to the Sam who thrived in Camp Bastion when it hit fifty-five degrees, eh?" He was joking with her, of course, but his tone was gentle.

Sam sat up, shaking her head. "I don't what's wrong with me at the moment. I've not slept properly in a fortnight, and I just feel like crap today. I'm not going to faint again though, if that's what you're worried about."

"It's not," he replied gently. "Anyway," he said, his tone entirely different, "I wonder what you've been up to, instead of sleeping?"

"Shut up!" Sam sighed, feeling her cheeks warm a little. Maybe it would stop her looking so pale. Iain's smutty suggestion wasn't even true. She simply had had such poor-quality sleep that it must have hit her hard and caused that spectacular crash.

The ambulance station was cool and quiet. It was a relief to Iain that he didn't have to encourage Sam to take a seat and rest up before the next call came in.

She nodded at him but didn't speak, when he said he had to go and make a call. She sat back against the sofa: her head wasn't spinning anymore, which was a small luxury when it now felt full, both of thoughts and in the weird dehydrated sense of feeling packed with cotton wool.

The bar of Fruit and Nut was still in her pocket: she found it when she reached for her phone. When her fingers touched the smooth wrapped, she remembered Dylan's earnest attempt to make her feel better. She smiled as she broke off a square. The chocolate had softened slightly in her pocket but it still tasted good. She contemplated texting Dylan to let him know what had happened, but he'd only worry. Her phone screen lit up at that moment with a text from him.

 _Ok?_

How did he manage to do that? It wasn't even the first time that their thoughts and messages had crossed in mid-air.

 _Still tired. The chocolate's helping x_

After tapping out her reply, she slid her phone back into her pocket and placed the now half-eaten chocolate bar carefully down on the floor by the sofa, before lying down and closing her eyes.

In her pocket, her phone lit up again, though this time she missed the arrival of Dylan's message.

 _I love you._

* * *

"Yeah, I know we're short-staffed. When are we not?" Iain argued down the phone. He turned to check that he was well out of Sam's earshot before continuing. "But I'm telling you, there's an excellent paramedic here, who's not fit for duty. She's not had a sick day in years, come on! Just put someone else on this shift!"

* * *

Lily's shift had ended. There was another hour before Ethan's came to a close, but at this rate, it would take that long just to reach the back of her locker, never mind clear it.

When he finally arrived, she was almost finished. He walked in, and she swiftly crumpled the piece of paper she was holding.

"What's that?" he asked.

"Um," Lily said, letting out a nervous laugh. "When I first moved to Holby, I had a five-year plan. Many copies of it, in fact."

Ethan smiled, remembering the abrasive Lily he'd been introduced to. "Can I see?"

She closed her eyes in embarrassment, but held it out to him all the same.

It had once been immaculate, he was sure, but the plan that Ethan now held was faded, with deep fold lines and smudged spots where drops of water had dislodged the ink. It was strange. Some of the bullet points were so far removed from the woman standing before him, that they could have been written by an entirely different person, while others sounded like they could have been written only five minutes earlier. Some things never changed.

One line, however, caught his eye.

"Marry a consultant?" he teased, raising one eyebrow.

Lily's cheeks glowed scarlet. She took the plan back, turning it over and over in her hands. "I used to obsess over this," she said, a little sadly. She shook her head, screwed the paper up once and for all, and threw it decisively, in a perfect arc, into the bin. "I'm not that girl anymore," she said firmly. "I don't need a piece of paper to tell me where I need to be. I want to be wherever you are."

Ethan smiled as she kissed his cheek, but his smile became quite fixed once their attention collectively drifted to his locker.

It shocked Lily that careful, deliberate Ethan swept the entire contents of his locker into a cardboard box without sorting anything at all.

"Aren't you –"

"No." His reply came short and rather abrupt. He softened. "Sorry," he said, looking down into the box wistfully. "It's just... There's things in there that – that I don't want to go through here. Things of..."

"Cal's." Lily finished his sentence, then took the box from his arms and put it beside her own. "That's us done, then."

He nodded. "It is."

"Do you want a minute, with your brother's things? You know, in here? I suppose you have quite a few memories tied up in this place."

He blinked away tears, pressing his lips together firmly. "Yes please," he managed to whisper.

Lily picked up her box and left the room without another word.

* * *

A broad Welsh accent woke Sam from her rest on the ambulance station sofa.

"Alright, Sleeping Beauty?" Jan teased, though she watched Sam like a hawk as the younger woman cautiously sat up. She was pale, but her colour didn't change with the move to a semi-vertical position.

Sam ran a hand down the length of her plait. "How long was I asleep?" she asked, still feeling a little woozy.

"Long enough," Jan replied simply. "Now, is Iain here being overdramatic, or do you need to go home?"

Sam glared at Iain. "I'm not a child!"

" _Are you feeling better?_ " she persisted.

"No," Sam admitted. If she lied, it would just catch up with her anyway, and if she fainted again there was no way she's be so lucky as to be at a hoax call.

"You know what I'm going to say, then," Jan said gently. "Go home, love. You can save the world tomorrow."

Sam nodded, a tiny smile on her lips.

* * *

"I said it, didn't I, that another chance would come along? Much better than Archie Grayling's offering too, I shouldn't wonder."

"Hmm," Lily agreed.

She and Dylan were both quiet, sitting on a bench outside the hospital, with Lily's box of assorting belongs between them as the constant reminder that things were about to change. Neither of them liked goodbyes.

Then, Lily remembered something. The secret she had been keeping all day. "Oh! There's something I have to show you, before I leave."

"Oh?"

Lily pulled her fine chain from its hiding place under her blouse. An engagement ring was threaded onto it. she couldn't help her mouth turning upwards into an innocently joyful smile. Dylan's eyes widened.

"Ethan understands why I couldn't wear it today," she explained as she undid the clasp of the necklace and slid the delicate ring back into its proper place, on her finger where it belonged. "I didn't want the fuss, not on top of everything to do on our last.

Dylan nodded understandingly, smiling at her logic. "Congratulations. I mean it, you two are very well-suited, and I'm sure you don't need someone as obtuse as me to lay down pleasantries and hope that you're very happy together. But there they are."

It was Lily's turn to smile. "Thank you, I think!" She sighed, and things turned serious again. She kicked at the gravel like a child, as she wondered what to say. "I know Oslo is... far away, but you will keep in touch, won't you?"

He nodded. "You won't disappear," he said kindly. "I have the strangest feeling that my email inbox will never be quiet again."

"It's only quiet because you choose to ignore it," she pointed out. She bit the inside of her cheek in an attempt to suppress all the emotions she was feeling. "Just – just keep ticking over."

"Ah." He knew they'd get around to his OCD somehow, and he was strangely glad that they had. "I don't think you need to worry about that, although I know you will." He tapped the little box of meds in his pocket and nodded in the direction of the ED. "They wouldn't let me do any less," he said fondly.

Lily agreed. Zoe and Sam would certainly endeavour to keep him going. She stood up; out of the corner of her eye she'd spotted Ethan emerge from the hospital with the box of his and Cal's things.

To her surprise, Dylan stood up too. "Come here," he said, enveloping her in a hug. If she hadn't been so shocked by his sudden display of affection, she might have cried, but nonetheless she hugged him back. Years of friendship were tied up in that hug.

"Thank you for being my friend," Dylan said gruffly. "Goodbye, Lily."

She sniffed, holding in tears. "Goodbye Dylan."

* * *

Sam looked down at the little white stick and gasped.

* * *

It came as a surprise to Dylan, that Sam's boots stood to attention by the door and her jacket was on the hook already, when he got home that evening. They'd moved out of the boat and into this little terraced house about eighteen months ago, and he almost always got home before she did.

"Sam?" he called up the stairs. "Everything okay?"

She looked at the pregnancy test in her hands for about the hundredth time, and smiled.

"I'm fine, don't worry. Can you come up here a minute? I've got something to tell you."

-The End-


End file.
